LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




DD013?3bHDIi 



Twenty-Five Sermons 



TWENTY-FIVE YEARS 




WILLIAM J. POTTER. 




BOSTON: 
Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street. 
1885. 




V 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Prefatory Letter v 

I. Apostolic Succession i 

II. The Soul's Rest 20 

III. God in Nature 32 

IV. Mercy and Judgment 48 

V. Self-sacrifice 56 

VI. The Religion of the Affections .... 71 

VII. Endurance 88 

VIII. Childhood's Instinct and Manhood's 

Faith 103 

IX. Pure Religion 116 

X. Christmas Legend and Fact 130 

XI. The Eden of the Senses and the Eden 

of the Soul 143 

XII. Thoughts and Conduct 158 

XIII. Easter Truths and Traditions .... 171 

XIV. Optimism 189 

XV. Mutual Social Responsibility 204 

XVI. Heart in Nature 224 



iv CONTENTS 

XVII. Waiting for One's Self 240 

XVIII. The Silent Revelation 256 

XIX. The Religion of Humanity 271 

XX. What do We Worship ? 288 

XXI. God in Humanity 304 

XXII. The Permanence of Morality .... 323 

XXIII. The Practicality of Thought 340 

XXIV. The Glorious God 355 



XXV. A Twenty-five Years' Ministry .... 376 



Appendix 



401 



PREFATORY LETTER. 



Dear Friends and Parishioners : 

For more than two years, I had cherished the 
thought that, if I should remain your minister 
twenty-five years, I would print a volume of dis- 
courses selected from those years, and have it ready 
as a surprise gift to you on the twenty-fifth anniver- 
sary. But the pressure of ordinary work delayed 
my entering on the execution of this purpose until 
last summer's vacation ; and then I found that the 
task of preparing and getting through the press 
such a book was too great for the limited time at 
command. The anniversary came, and only a begin- 
ning had been made. In an unguarded moment, I 
expressed to one of you my disappointment at not 
having completed this intention ; and thus I let out 
my secret. From that time, the purpose became 
yours ; and you now make the gift to yourselves. 
You asked and urged me to put the thought into 
action, and made it easier to do so ; and you, espe- 
cially, are responsible for the frontispiece and Ap- 



vi 



PREFATORY LETTER 



pendix to the volume, which formed no part of my 
plan, I have only selected and arranged for you the 
discourses and seen the book through the press. 

This book, therefore, has been made chiefly for 
your eyes. It may be regarded as, in a sense, a 
memorial record of our twenty-five years of parish 
life together. With this end in view, it contains the 
first and the last discourse of the quarter-century, 
and, with one exception, one from each of the suc- 
cessive years between, in chronological order. For 
one twelvemonth, though still your minister, my 
ministry was in soldiers' hospitals and near battle- 
fields. As that twelvemonth did not entirely syn- 
chronize with the calendar year, I might have found 
some sermon with the date 1864 attached to it ; but 
I came across nothing which it seemed worth while 
to print. I had left some of my physical vigor in 
Virginia, and it took several months to recover 
mental elasticity. This plan of selecting the ser- 
mons from the whole period of the twenty-five years 
is one, I am well aware, which involves a risk. Pos- 
sibly, it involves some moral risk to assume that 
anything I wrote in the earliest part of my ministry 
can be worthy of preservation. But there is also a 
risk that the plan may cause some misunderstanding 
in regard to my present intellectual beliefs. As 
explained in the anniversary discourse, — the last in 
the book, — my views have undergone considerable 



PREFATORY LETTER 



vii 



change in this period. Hence there are among my 
earlier discourses many which I could not write in 
just the same way to-day ; and some of those chosen 
for this volume come, in a measure, under this class. 
I have chosen none, however, the main lesson of 
which I should not still stand by and hold impor- 
tant ; and, if certain incongruities in respect to sub- 
ordinate ideas and phraseology may appear between 
the earlier and later discourses, they are a part of the 
record of my ministry which I have no wish to con- 
ceal, and which may have, indeed, a certain interest 
and value. 

With one exception, I have allowed myself to 
change only verbal infelicities ; and that exception 
seems to me of sufficient importance specially to 
note. The discourse on "The Religion of the Af- 
fections," numbered VI., was quite recently repeated, 
and was included in the volume by the request of a 
number of persons who then heard it. At the repe- 
tition, I inserted a modifying, cautionary clause on 
introducing the argument from the doctrine of im- 
mortality ; and this I have permitted to stand in the 
sermon, which is otherwise printed substantially as 
first delivered in 1865. The discourses are, for the 
most part, dated at the time of their first or only 
delivery in our own church. In two or three cases, 
where they had been to a considerable extent rewrit- 
ten, the date when they were given in their new 



Vlll 



PREFATORY LETTER 



form is attached ; as, for instance, number XXI. 
was delivered in several places and several years 
before the date here assigned it, when it appeared 
in revised form. In the anniversary sermon, one 
quite important paragraph, accidentally omitted in 
the delivery, has been inserted. As you know, I 
have not in late years held to the custom of taking 
texts, either from the Hebrew and Christian Script- 
ures or elsewhere. My habit is to use a text, 
from whatever source, only when the text actually 
suggests the sermon. But sometimes I have writ- 
ten a quotation as a motto at the head of a sermon, 
without referring to it in the delivery ; and in a few 
instances, for the sake of uniformity, I have prefixed 
such mottoes to sermons chosen for the volume, 
where they were wanting. 

Had I been called to select a volume of discourses 
for the general public, I should have chosen such as 
would have a more logical connection on some one 
line of thought. But for you, as a memorial volume 
of these years during which we have lived and 
worked together, I have judged that a more miscel- 
laneous selection, as regards topics, would be more 
acceptable and useful. Selecting thus from the 
wide variety of subjects which have engaged our 
thoughts in the Sunday service, I have had, however, 
two leading aims : first, to choose those discourses 
that seemed to touch most closely the permanent 



PREFATORY LETTER 



ix 



problems of moral and religious life ; and, second, 
to choose those that attempted to throw some light 
on the specially perplexing problems of modern 
religious thought. With the hope that these ser- 
mons, thus chosen, which, as a congregation, you 
have listened to from the pulpit, may now be a help 
to some of you in the nearer companionship of your 
homes, I respond to your kindly expressed wish, and 
put them into your hands. 

Sincerely your friend, 

Wm. J. Potter. 

New Bedford, May i, 1S85. 



SURE the dumb earth hath memory, nor for naught 
Was Fancy given, on whose enchanted loom 
Present and Past commingle, fruit and bloom 
Of one fair bough, inseparably wrought 
Into the seamless tapestry of thought. 
So charmed, with undeluded eye we see 
In history's fragmentary tale 
Bright clews of continuity, 
Learn that high natures over Time prevail, 
And feel ourselves a link in that entail 
That binds all ages past with all that are to be. 



James Russell Lowell. 



I. 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 

" Other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors." — 
John iv., 38. 

" Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received 
mercy, we faint not." — II. Cor. iv., 1. 

As I recall the succession of able men who with 
eloquent lips and earnest hearts have ministered to 
the spiritual wants of this Society, in the privacy of 
your homes and from this desk, and into whose 
labors among you, responsive to your call, I this day 
enter, my heart trembles with conflicting emotions 
of fear and hope : of fear, lest I shall wear but un- 
worthily the pastoral mantle now fallen upon me 
from these past prophets and only demean offices 
hallowed to your hearts by so many memories ; of 
hope, when I think of the warm hands with which 
you have welcomed me here to begin my life's work, 
so near the scenes among which began my life. 
Ay, Lam tremulous with joyous pride, when I re- 
member the nature of the work into whose long 
succession of laborers you have now admitted me, 
and see that this day the dream of my life is 
fulfilled. Confirmed by this realization of my child- 
hood's hopes, inspired by a conviction of the worthi- 
ness of the office before me, and reading in the 



2 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



unanimity of your invitation and in the ready con- 
sent you have given to my requests for certain 
changes in some of your forms of service that you 
will freely and candidly listen to my thought, though 
it may not always agree with your own, and not be 
swift to censure deficiencies which must become 
apparent to you from a closer intercourse, I am 
emboldened to say with Paul, " Having therefore this 
ministry, as I have received mercy, I faint not." 

Into the lengthening succession of the ministry, 
then, I now enter, and to its holy offices, under the 
blessing of God, here consecrate my powers. And 
the thoughts which the occasion presses upon me 
group themselves naturally around this topic, — the 
true doctrine of Apostolic Succession. 

You know the old doctrine that goes by this 
name, which asserts that no ministry is valid unless 
it can be traced back, by the successive laying on 
of priestly hands, to the grace which Jesus himself 
communicated when he commissioned the first apos- 
tles. According to this view, the Holy Spirit can 
flow only through certain ecclesiastical channels, 
and spiritual validity is made dependent on physical 
manipulations. The minister does not go immedi- 
ately and for himself to the fountain of grace which 
gives worth and spiritual life to his ministrations ; 
but — standing at the end of this long conduit, 
reaching back through all the ramifications and dis- 
turbances of ecclesiastical history for eighteen hun- 
dred years — he is dependent for such supplies as 
tradition may have saved for him from a past age 
through the hands of pope and prelate. The Script- 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 



3 



ures, interpreted by the traditions and official voice 
of the Church, — this is the channel, and this only, 
through which his spirit may receive divine truth. 
And when we remember the worthless character of 
not a few of those who have stood in this priestly 
line of succession, and see through what gross and 
sordid hands this legacy of truth has sometimes had 
to pass ; and when we think with what rubbish and 
corruption the channel of ecclesiastical history has 
been clogged and befouled, — is it strange that those 
who trust to this resource for their supplies of grace 
should often find them both scanty and stale ? What 
wonder if they should sometimes discover that what 
they had taken for aqueducts of pure water should 
turn out to be offensive sewers, bringing down the 
filth and poison of effete centuries ! 

But this view, though its shadow linger yet in 
several of the Protestant sects, is distinctly declared 
and maintained as a dogma only by the Roman 
Catholics and the High Church party of the Epis- 
copal denomination, and need not detain us longer. 
The fact of the Reformation and the consequent 
springing up of new sects, and often under the lead- 
ership of teachers on whom no priestly hands had 
been laid in consecration, necessitated the abandon- 
ment of the doctrine that ministerial grace is trans- 
mitted from the first apostles through an unbroken 
chain of physical communication, and gave rise to 
the second form of the doctrine of Apostolic Suc- 
cession, which, for sake of distinction, though not 
held very strictly by all the Protestant sects, yet 
found to some extent in all or nearly all, I shall call 
the Protestant view of the doctrine. 



4 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



According to this view, it is not necessary, in 
order to validate the ministerial office, that the lay- 
ing on of priestly hands should have been maintained 
in unbroken succession from the first apostles. The 
impossibility of tracing such a genealogy through 
the confused history of the Middle Ages and the 
meagre annals of the first centuries of the Church, 
if there were no other objections, is deemed a suffi- 
cient argument against the claim. But the real suc- 
cession and validity, it is maintained, are spiritual ; 
and the laying on of hands is only emblematic of 
grace already possessed, or, at best, is only a form 
of giving ecclesiastical validity, not substantial and 
spiritual qualifications. And this were all clear and 
rational, if it were only the real doctrine held ; that 
is, if the doctrine, as it is really held, were what the 
plain sense of these words indicates. But, in point 
of fact, there is hardly a Protestant sect that does 
not practically reproduce, with more or less strict- 
ness, in its own limits the Roman Catholic idea of 
validity. It is not necessary, indeed, for the Prot- 
estant preacher's validity that he should have re- 
ceived grace through the unbroken priestly order of 
the Church from the original apostles ; but it is 
deemed necessary that he should have received it 
from hands of his own faith. The Calvinist minister 
needs not, in order to^ prove his legitimacy, to show 
that the hands which were laid upon him received 
grace from some prelate's hands, which were made 
gracious by some previous prelate's hands, and so 
on back to the original grace in Galilee ; but he 
must show that the hands of Calvinists have been 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 



5 



laid upon him. Should it be said that this form is 
only emblematic of approbation and fellowship on 
points of doctrine, I reply that the fancied explana- 
tion points to the very root of the error and, instead 
of refuting my statement, proves it ; for it shows that 
the substantial and spiritual qualifications — of the 
possession of which, it is said, the form of ordination 
is only symbolic — must have come through certain 
channels and have a certain church stamp upon 
them. Whatever may be said of individual societies, 
there is no sect — no, not even the most liberal — 
that dares to trust a minister freely with the Divine 
Spirit. He must have that Spirit, indeed ; but he 
cannot breathe it in like the free air of heaven by 
contact with his own lungs. He must have it meas- 
ured out for him by prescription of some theological 
authority, and inhale it artificially through the sponge 
of a creed. It is not the Divine Spirit coming to 
him and showing him truth, but that Spirit as it 
once came to Luther or Calvin or Swedenborg or 
Wesley or Fox ; and if, perchance, it should come 
to him with some word not told to them, and he 
should use his freedom to utter it, most likely he 
will be disfellowshipped and excommunicated there- 
for. And so essentially there is no difference be- 
tween the Catholic and the common Protestant 
doctrine of ministerial succession. The papal priest 
succeeds to apostolic grace and truth by hereditary 
descent from the first apostles. The Protestant 
minister succeeds to the apostolic inheritance by 
tradition from the founder, or founders, of his spe- 
cial sect. The only difference is that the Protestant 



6 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



thinks that the line of hereditary descent from the 
first apostles has been broken, so that corruptions 
entered the Church, and that this failure has been 
mended by the truth having been reshown to the 
founders of his own sect. But both the Catholic 
and Protestant parties agree that of religious truth, 
at least for this world, there has been a final revela- 
tion ; and each of these two great bodies, as well as 
each of the numerous smaller Protestant sects, — with 
hardly a complete exception, — claims that its own 
interpretation of that revelation is a finality, so that 
a new minister only succeeds to the old office of ex- 
pounding Scriptural truth according to the creed 
and commentaries of his own faith, travelling over 
the same road trodden by his predecessors for, it 
may be, hundreds of years ; while those who put 
themselves above the Scriptures, and claim the con- 
tinuance and efficacy of the same revealing Spirit 
which manifested itself in them, are denounced as 
heretics and infidels. The sect that still claims 
the present guidance of the Holy Spirit as above 
Scripture — that of the Society of Friends, or 
Quakers — makes, at least in its largest section, no 
proper exception to this judgment; for it practically 
neutralizes the doctrine by making the authenticity 
of the living spoken Word of to-day depend upon 
agreement with the literal written words of eighteen 
centuries ago. And so there is succession, but no 
advancement. Churches are built, decay, and are 
succeeded by others, generation after generation of 
priests passes away, and yet there is no progress, 
no going beyond the creed of the fathers, no getting 
out of the catechism. 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 



7 



Notice that I am here stating the principle on 
which the sects stand rather than actual facts with 
regard to them. As a matter of fact, not even the 
strictest sect, I believe, is able to resist the gen- 
eral current of progress, which is shown, however, 
rather by a prudent silence on some of their most 
discreditable articles of faith than by boldly expung- 
ing them from the creed. In principle, however, 
no progress can be admitted. The Orthodox must 
hold to Calvin or Edwards, the Methodist must not 
depart from Wesley, the Quaker cannot go beyond 
Fox and Barclay ; and even in our own free denomi- 
nation there are many who would draw lines each 
side of Channing, to pass over which in either direc- 
tion should be deemed sufficient cause for non- 
fellowship. So that, with the partial exception of 
Liberal Christians, whatever advancement the sects 
make in religious truth is made not in consequence 
but in spite of their principles. And this advance- 
ment of particular sects, in spite of their creeds and 
their own efforts, is the result of a general move- 
ment in the knowledge of truth by which the whole 
civilized world is going forward : which brings us to 
the third mow under our topic, — the true and philo- 
sophic order of Apostolic Succession and ministerial 
validity. Let us distinguish the points carefully. 

i. That is a narrow conception of revelation, and, 
as I believe, unsupported both by enlightened views 
of the nature of God and by the history of the relig- 
ious development of man, which maintains that in 
religious truth there is no progress, — that the Chris- 
tian of to-day has no better ideas of God and man 



8 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



and the relation between them than the Christian of 
eighteen centuries ago. It would indeed be strange 
if, while science and art and philosophy are pro- 
gressive, religion — which embraces them all, the 
science, art, and philosophy of life — should stand 
still, and have no new word for eighteen hundred 
years. Nor does the history of Christianity bring 
us to any such singular result. So far as Chris- 
tianity is a revelation of God, it is so, not because 
it laid down a platform of doctrines and put a finality 
to all religious thought and inquiry, but because it 
entered the world as a vitalizing, organizing power, 
bringing truth gradually to light and building up 
society according to its dictates. Truth, indeed, is 
one, absolute, eternal, infinite. But, for this very 
reason, the revelation of religious truth, as of all 
other truth, to a finite, progressive being must be 
always gradual, partial, and progressive. The case 
would not be altered by the supposition that the 
revelation of religious truth is through supernatural 
means and at special seasons. For even though the 
Creator, by methods above the ordinary laws of 
spiritual influence, should have so acted upon a few 
minds, the writers of the Bible, that they saw and 
uttered truths which otherwise they would not have 
seen, yet the minds of other persons — that is, of the 
world at large — could not see and comprehend these 
truths until elevated to the same condition of seeing, 
which must occur either suddenly by supernatural 
agency or gradually by natural growth and develop- 
ment ; and, as the former process is not claimed by 
the hypothesis except in the case of those to whom 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 



9 



the truth was first shown, it follows that to the 
world at large the revelation must be gradual and 
progressive. And, moreover, this must be so from 
the very nature of the mind itself. Our powers are 
not given us in full maturity, but as germs to be 
developed, we know not to what destined end. To 
this law of growth, the religious faculty, including 
religious perception as well as sentiment, is certainly 
no exception : else, why all this organizing of means, 
of preaching and prayer and missions, to make men 
more rationally religious ? The elevation of the 
soul, the enlargement and quickening of the truth- 
seeing faculty within us, is, in fact, the test of the 
growth of character. And as not even Omnipo- 
tence can make the blind see without first opening 
their eyes, so he cannot reveal truth to the soul 
unless the soul be first opened to receive it ; and as 
the soul, in the natural order, opens by gradual 
development, so the revelation must be gradual and 
progressive. What is true of the individual is also 
true of the race, since the race advances only 
through the progress of individuals. Religious 
truth, then, in process of revelation to the world, 
must be progressive. 

2. What are the agencies through which this 
revelation is effected ? First and foremost is the 
Divine Spirit, the source or vital atmosphere of the 
truth itself which is to be revealed. This is 
the primary and permanent agency acting through 
and above all others. It is Infinite Being revealing 
itself, Absolute and Infinite Truth making its way 
into finite, individual consciousness. The Divine 



10 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



Spirit is only a form of conception for God. It is 
God going forth, as it were, from himself, — the 
Eternal Word issuing from Absolute, Unchangeable 
Being, and seeking incarnation and articulation in 
finite, personal form. This Eternal Word carries 
truth with it, by virtue of its very nature ; for truth 
is its life and substance. This is that " Wisdom" 
which "in all ages, entering into holy souls, maketh 
them friends of God and prophets." In every finite 
soul, then, in which this Word comes to conscious- 
ness, and just in proportion to the extent of that 
consciousness, is truth revealed. 

And so the finite soul becomes a second and sub- 
agency in the revelation of truth. For though in 
every human being there is planted, as its vital 
organic principle, a germ of this eternal substance 
of the Divine Spirit, which will develop, as the 
faculties open, into religious principles and char- 
acter, yet, as in science and art and every department 
of knowledge there have always been individuals 
who have seen farther than the mass of men, and 
have therefore been special instructors in their 
respective branches of knowledge, so in all ages 
have men appeared in whom the religious conscious- 
ness has been so elevated that they have seen 
farther than mankind in general into the secrets of 
religious truth, and become its special revealers to 
the world. These are the Spirit's witnesses, through 
whom the higher truths of religion are confirmed, 
if not announced, to humanity at large. They stand 
along the course of history as the guides of the race, 
as the prophets of human destiny. Their souls are 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 



I I 



the reflectors of divine truth, so placed that they 
throw the rays upon the common human heart, and 
start into life and organic form the germs of truth 
before lying latent there. Through these prophetic 
souls, the common religious consciousness of the 
race is quickened to greater activity and elevated 
to a higher point of vision and a more extended 
spiritual horizon. And, then, as out of this elevated 
religious consciousness a new generation is born, so 
the prophets of this newer generation — even if, their 
feet standing on this higher plane, they do not see 
farther into the mysteries of truth than their prede- 
cessors — will at least have a better vantage-ground 
from which, with the truth they do see, they can 
act practically upon the world. And thus the com- 
mon religious consciousness of the race is elevated 
to still higher reach ; and this elevation, in its turn, 
becomes a new stage by which succeeding prophets 
shall rise to yet larger vision, and make to the 
underlying world still broader revelations of Infinite 
Wisdom. As scientific men take up their respec 
tive sciences where they were left by the preceding 
generation, and so go on from these results to fresh 
discoveries and new generalizations, so each gen- 
eration of religious teachers, standing on the ground 
won by the preceding age, should attain to broader 
views and help build to more perfect completion the 
temple of religious truth. And this is the true 
divine order of Apostolic Succession. 

3. If we would follow the line of this succession, 
we must get above denominational distinctions and 
take a broad philosophic view of religious develop- 



12 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ment, not merely within the limits of sects, but in 
the production of sects. We shall then see that the 
true Apostolic Succession does not lie within de- 
nominational boundaries, but overleaps them, and 
that, in the race of true prophets, validity is proved 
rather by departure from than conformity to the 
established order of creeds and churches. Who does 
not see that Paul, though he had never seen Jesus 
in the flesh and was regarded with jealousy by the 
original apostles as an interloper and innovator of 
dangerous doctrines, was yet a truer apostle of Jesus 
than were they ? Paul, with his idea of the univer- 
sality of the gospel, embracing the Gentile world, 
was the really Christian apostle; while the twelve 
were little more than partially reformed Jews. 
Again, Wiclif and Huss and Luther, Calvin and 
Zwingle, though trampling on the authority of the 
Church and introducing new doctrines and ecclesi- 
astical usages, were yet, by spiritual descent, more 
legitimately priests of Christianity than were the 
popes and bishops who excommunicated them. So, 
in England to-day, it is not the High Church party, 
trying to stand so straight by ecclesiastical tradition 
and the Thirty-nine Articles that it leans backward 
toward Rome, — it is not this party that is carrying 
out, by true succession, the principles of the Refor- 
mation, but rather the heresy-suspected leaders of 
the Broad Church party, — Jowett, Whately, Stanley, 
and the lamented Arnold and Robertson, or even 
the open dissenters. Fox and Wesley and Bunyan 
denounced Church and priest ; yet, by the laying 
on of spiritual hands, they were more legitimately 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 



13 



successors in God's line of priesthood than the 
Archbishops of York or Canterbury. So, if we 
were to look for the true successors of Fox and 
Penn, we might not find them in the sect that, from 
the effort to stand upon their protest against forms 
and ceremonies in religion, has become the most 
severely formal of all religious denominations. The 
cause of the persecuted Independents, who fled 
from the tyranny of the English Church to find an 
asylum in New England, is better upheld now by 
the liberal sects than by those who still subscribe to 
the Puritan creed. And to come still nearer home, 
when I read the sublime pleas of Channing for the 
fullest liberty of religious inquiry and the formation 
of religious opinions untrammelled by the authority 
of great names or ecclesiastical organizations, and 
when I remember his earnest protestations against 
imposing upon the convictions of a single soul the 
bondage of a creed or making articles of faith the 
test of religion, I can but ask whether those who 
call themselves " Channing Unitarians," because, 
forsooth, they adopt his beliefs, are, in reality, so 
truly his followers as those who, entering into his 
labors and adopting his methods of fearless inquiry 
and criticism, have taken up the results of his 
thought and advanced to still greater victories over 
the degrading errors of the popular theology and to 
still clearer visions of religious truth. It behooves 
us, at least, to inquire whether to stand where Chan- 
ning stood is to be his follower. None, I am sure, 
quicker than he would rebuke the attempt to build 
a sect upon his creed by cutting off all inquiry 



14 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



beyond. To stop at his results, as though all truth 
were found, is not to honor, but to defame his 
memory. The only church that can be an honest 
monument to his name and truly claim him as its 
great apostle is that which, with the largest freedom 
of religious inquiry and indefinite progress in relig- 
ious truth, combines the utmost charity to oppo- 
nents in opinion and love to all men. Away, then, 
with that childishness that talks of there being " no 
more road in the direction we have been going" ! 
It is as ludicrously short-sighted as the opinion of 
the commissioners appointed, two hundred years 
ago, by the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, to lay out 
a public road into the wilderness ten miles west from 
Boston, who, in their final report, congratulated the 
General Court on the completion of the work, even 
at the great and unexpected cost, as there would 
never be need of a road any farther in that direc- 
tion ! Nay, it is worse than short-sightedness, this 
talk of turning our forces, fatigued with the long 
march, to seek repose in the dreamy sanctity of 
venerable ecclesiastic rites and a "mystic church 
organization." It is infidelity to our Protestant in- 
heritance, infidelity to the spirit of the age, infi- 
delity to the great trusts we have assumed for 
humanity by virtue of our position, infidelity to the 
guiding Providence of God, and a cowardly distrust 
of the powers he has committed to man.* 

We may see, then, from the foregoing illustra- 

*The references in the above sentences are to the then much discussed sermon 
of Dr. Bellows, on "The Suspense of Faith," given at Cambridge in the preceding 
summer, 1859. 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 



15 



tions, how the lineage of the true apostolic succes- 
sion runs ; that it is not identical nor parallel with 
ecclesiastical lineage, but crosses and denies its 
legitimacy ; that it is not to be found intact in any 
one church or sect, but breaks through churches and 
sects, and follows always the line of development in 
religious ideas ; that, finally, God's priesthood are 
not ordained by the laying on of ecclesiastic hands, 
but by the revelation of truth to the soul. And in 
this priestly succession stands many a one without 
mitre or surplice, unfrocked, and unconsecrated by 
ecclesiastic hand, — many a one who never stands in 
pulpit or speaks in the priestly name. So, too, there 
is many a surpliced or cassocked preacher, many 
a one whose ecclesiastic validity is amply authenti- 
cated by all the forms of the Church, and who may 
speak from the pulpit every Sunday with priestly 
authority to the people, who yet has no part in this 
apostolic succession of God's priesthood and (to 
adopt with a little variation Dr. Channing's phrase- 
ology) no validity of the Spirit's grace, though all 
the unctuous hands of Rome, Geneva, Princeton, or 
Cambridge, have been laid upon him. But to whom- 
soever and wheresoever the truth is shown, if it be 
but uttered again, in public or in private speech, by 
pen or spoken word, there is a prophet of God ; one 
who stands by true commission in the eternal order 
of the Spirit's priesthood. And all they to whom 
the truth is shown, by whomsoever or wheresoever 
shown, and who strive faithfully to live thereby, 
whether in the limits or out of the limits of ecclesi- 
astic lines, constitute the true Broad Church, the 



1 6 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

real Catholic Church, which breaks over all the 
partition walls of sect, and joins in one spiritual 
fellowship the true and holy souls of all nations, 
ages, and religions. 

My friends, I pray that it be into no merely eccle- 
siastical order of ministerial succession that I now 
enter among you. If I felt that I had no validity- 
save what came to me through the churchly cere- 
monies of last week, severely simple though they 
were, I should not stand here to-day. I do not 
come among you to help build up a sect, or to fill 
your pews, or to perform merely the priestly office 
in your homes. I come to speak to you whatever of 
truth may by God's grace be shown to me. I ask 
only that you may listen by the same grace. I be- 
lieve that the mission of Unitarian Christianity is 
higher and larger than simply to make a new relig- 
ious sect or to open new places for Sunday worship 
or to fill old ones, — namely : to liberalize and spirit- 
ualize all sects, to make all society religious and 
all life worship ; and all ecclesiastical organizations, 
forms, rituals, ministers, missions, houses of worship, 
the very Church itself, are nothing, and worse than 
nothing, if they do not effect this. 

This morning's sun brought the birth of the eigh- 
teen hundred and sixtieth year of the Christian era. 
Eighteen hundred and sixty years since that Life 
appeared in Galilee, which seemed so divine a thing 
that it became the measure of time and named the 
civilized world ! In these years, what successions 
of priests have come forth in the name of Christ, 
and passed away ; how numberless the churches 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 



dedicated to his memory ; what countless crowds 
of worshippers have knelt at his altars ; how various 
the sects claiming his authority for their doctrines 
and practices ; what conflicting systems of theology 
have been built upon his words ; what imposing 
pageantries of ritual and ceremony, what costly 
and complicated organizations, what a vast array 
of ecclesiastical machinery, what wealth and en- 
ginery of material and political forces, have gathered 
around that humbly born life in Nazareth ! But 
what more ? Has that life been lived ? Do we 
dare to live it yet ? Does it appear in society, in 
government ? Do we yet trust the principles of 
peace that this Prince of Peace proclaimed ? Count 
our armies. See our bristling forts. Look at 
Christian Europe in arms to-day. No : we have 
no faith in Christ. We dare not trust the principles 
he uttered, till the whole world shall adopt them. 
Do we yet enact his precepts in our laws ? A slave 
woman comes to you, flying for freedom, for purity, 
for life. You must violate your laws, if you will 
give her humane shelter. You must hang the men 
who go down to the tyrant's house, with chivalrous 
hearts, to set her free. Look into the world of 
business. Does Christ's life appear there ? Does 
the merchant always dare to follow the laws of 
justice and strict honesty, when they interfere with 
what he calls the laws of trade ? No : the Christian 
sects do not dare to live Christ's life yet. For cen- 
turies, now, the civilized world has borne his name. 
It has prayed to him and through him ; it has called 
him Son of God, nay, God himself ; it has invented 



:8 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ingenious devices of theology by which he may save 
mankind ; men have preached him, read him, ad- 
mired him, worshipped him ; but who yet dares to 
live as he lived, with no authority but Truth, no 
law but Right, no master but God ? With all its 
massive and wide-spread organizations, with all this 
ecclesiastical machinery and power, — nay, with all 
its victories, for it has them, — how little, when we 
consider its resources, has Christianity done toward 
Christianizing society ! 

And, if we were to look for the cause of these 
small results, we should find it, I believe, to be 
chiefly that there has been too much organization, 
too much mechanism, too much Church. The power 
has been nearly spent in moving the machinery. 
It is an historical fact that, so far as Christian truth 
or the moral essence of Christianity has made prog- 
ress in society and appeared in the reform of laws 
and social institutions, it has done so, not through 
the organic action of the Church, but against it. 
And, at this very day, it is the most powerful and 
strongly organized Christian sects that most stand 
in the way of the progress of religious truth and 
social reforms. It is not the "organic, instituted, 
ritualized," imperial Church, with its mystic sanctity 
and symbols, with its sacred days and usages made 
venerable by centuries of repetition, that is to bring 
the kingdom of God ; nor yet is that kingdom to 
come through the priests of this Church, made such 
only by ecclesiastic grace. But wherever a single 
soul bows with more passionate devotion to truth, 
and resolves to follow the truth wheresoever it may 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 



19 



lead, through whatsoever road, and though losing 
all things else, even life itself, there is a member of 
God's Church and a true minister in the line of his 
priesthood. 

It is into the order of the holy priesthood of this 
inorganic, spiritual Church that I pray this day to 
enter. It is into the membership — yea, ministry — 
of this Church that I invite you. If I can lift any 
souls among you to more ennobling truth, to purer 
love, to stronger virtue, if I can quicken your spirit- 
ual vision and lead any of you to see more clearly 
the infinite beauty of a life proportioned to the laws 
of Eternal Rectitude, then will these New Year's 
vows of consecration be crowned indeed with bless- 
ing, being followed in due season by seed-time 
showers and hopes, maturing summer suns, and 
autumn harvests of ripened souls. 

January 1, i860. 



II. 



THE SOUL'S REST. 

"Return unto thy rest, O my soul." — Psalm cxvi., 7. 

" There would seem," says a living writer and one 
of the greatest of living preachers,* "to be an incu- 
rable variance between the life which men covet for 
themselves and that which they admire in others ; 
nay, between the lot which they would choose 
beforehand and that in which they glory afterwards. 
In prospect, nothing appears so attractive as ease 
and licensed comfort ; in retrospect, nothing so de- 
lightful as toil and strenuous service." 

The truth of this remark is being repeatedly 
impressed upon us both by public and private cir- 
cumstance. It does seem as if Providence had con- 
ditioned us to a lot of labor and struggle, — nay, 
forced it upon us, — while our first aim is to smooth 
our path and prepare the way for an after happi- 
ness which consists in rest and passive pleasure. 
The Creator leaves no soul at ease. If inherited 
circumstances give you the perilous opportunity, 
you may try the problem of an inactive life, resist- 
less to any inclination or whim that the hour may 
give birth to ; but be assured that, for as many hours 



* James Martineau. 



THE SOUL'S REST 



21 



thus spent, nature, which is the working of divine 
laws, will demand in payment an equal number of 
hours of weariness and disgust, of aching nerves and 
empty heart, — a gnawing consciousness of a destiny 
unfulfilled and of faculties craving a rest they have 
not yet attained. If inheritance, fortunately, has 
not put your life to such a hazard, then you are 
forced to an existence of toil, of body or mind, in 
order to keep that very existence. The earth will 
not yield you bread till you have ploughed and 
tilled ; and, in the furrow where you plant your seed, 
God grows weeds as well as corn, in order to task 
your energies still the more. You must fell the 
forests before they shelter you ; spin the cotton, 
weave the wool, before they clothe you; build the 
ship and invent compass and chart before you can 
bring the ends of the earth to serve your needs. 
We are thrown upon a world of wild, half-savage 
material forces, which we must either tame and 
subdue to service or be destroyed by them. Yet 
all the time, throughout the struggle, we cry for 
respite and rest ; and the most prevailing motive 
that spurs on these toiling millions of men and 
women all around the globe is the hope that by 
and by toil will cease in competency, and struggle 
be rewarded with independent ease. 

Just so it is with our moral and spiritual condi- 
tion. We cannot get food for our intellects, we can- 
not clothe our souls in the virtues, we cannot orna- 
ment them with the graces of character, we cannot 
build up good society and good institutions around 
us, we cannot have good governments, good laws, 



22 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



and good charitable organizations, we cannot be safe 
in our houses or in the street, we cannot do away 
with evil institutions, with crime and corruption and 
vices, — our own or those of the community, — we 
cannot, I say, have or do any of these things without 
labor and study and struggle and assiduous culture. 
We are thrown upon a world of wild, unregulated 
moral forces, which we must also tame and bring 
to service, or they, too, will work our destruction. 

Yet all the time, as in the physical, so in this 
moral struggle, we sigh for rest ; and the strongest 
incentive that urges us along the path of conflict is 
the hoped-for ease to come at the end. We are 
driven to the battle, not so much that the truth and 
the right may be victorious as for the sake of the 
peace that will follow. Wearied with the assaults 
of passion, we long for an untempted virtue. Our 
comfort invaded by the dust and din of contending 
forces, we yearn for the quiet of neutrality, and 
for the sake of ease are not infrequently tempted 
into dishonorable treaties with vices that ought to 
be recognized only to be exterminated. 

And so, generally, the moral condition which we 
covet is just the reverse of that to which we have 
been born. Born for contest, we ask for repose. 
We would skip, if possible, the drill and the disci- 
pline, and clutch at once the prizes of victory. 
How many of us go through life like complaining 
school-children, — doing our tasks, it may be, but 
longing for the time when books shall be put aside 
and all lessons come to an end ! Questions, it may 
be, besiege the intellect, demanding of it activity 



THE SOUL'S REST 



23 



and decision ; doubts, perhaps, of the old settlement 
of religious things in which we have been educated, 
— doubts and questionings and conflicts and search- 
ing inquiry, which are the providential order of 
removing error and bringing in the light of truth. 
Yet, tired of the intellectual struggle, appalled by 
the view that seems to keep man's reason in con- 
stant tension and humanity in continual march, we 
are often tempted to escape the responsibilities that 
our faculties impose upon us, and, suspending rea- 
son, to sink back on the soft cushions of ecclesias- 
tical authority. Thus it is that some struggling 
souls, shrinking from the conflict and from the inev- 
itable conclusions that the Protestant principle of 
individual inquiry forces upon them, seek for rest 
and try to lull all religious questionings to sleep on 
the ready-made bed of the Church of Rome. 

Or it may be that it is a moral contest we have 
entered upon, — a contest with social evils around 
us or with the nearer evils in our own breasts. But 
we find that the battle goes hard against us. So- 
ciety is slow to acknowledge its sins, and still slower 
to remove them. Public opinion frowns upon our 
efforts. Friends, even, regard our schemes as Uto- 
pian, and evidence only of amiable weakness. And 
the very classes of society we would help, not infre- 
quently suspect and resist the aid that we offer. 
With so much against us, it is not strange if we 
should often be sorely tempted to give over the 
battle, and let ourselves float smoothly along with 
the stronger current of popular opinion, leaving it 
to God (as we say, in phrase that sounds more pious 



24 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



than it is), who has permitted evil, to take care of it. 
And this fallacious rest we often try, too, when the 
moral struggle is with ourselves. Our evil habits 
too strong for one encounter, our vices too deeply 
rooted to be washed out by mere tears of repentance, 
the passions — avarice, selfish ambition, carnal appe- 
tite — from continued indulgence grown inordinate 
in their demands, and all the forces of our being 
having fallen under the control of pur lower nature, 
conscience, maimed and bleeding, is often tempted 
to retire from the hard contest on the high ground 
of moral law, to try the flattering repose offered by 
the code of social respectability. And hence it is 
that very many come to accept as the standard of 
their lives, not what the highest moral truth de- 
mands > but what the common decencies of society 
will allow ; while only a prayer is left that He who 
has made us with passions, and thrown this conflict 
with them upon us, will somehow grant us rest from 
their tyranny on a higher level hereafter. Religion, 
too, or much that passes in its name, not infre- 
quently fosters this easy faith, and, instead of nerv- 
ing us to strong encounter with evil, degenerates 
into plaintive whining over the ills of earth and 
sighing for the rest of heaven. 

But, notwithstanding the prevailing extent of this 
desire for repose and the fallacious arguments with 
which we attempt to cover our own delinquencies in 
the matter, human nature, in its inmost heart, is 
sound, and honors no repose which is not honorably 
achieved by contest and victory. Human nature is 
to be judged, not by the standard which individual 



THE SOUL'S REST 



25 



men live by, or even set for themselves, but by that 
which they most admire in others ; and that must 
be regarded as the aim of humanity at large, which, 
though exhibited in the attainment of but a single 
individual, gathers about it the greatest number who 
applaud and revere it. What craven spirit was ever 
admired in history or in fiction ? Who but the 
brave, who but those who against all obstacles 
have contended manfully and unflinchingly and kept 
their integrity to the bitter end, have ever been 
adopted as the models or worshipped as the heroes of 
mankind ? How immeasurably more has the world 
admired the character of Socrates for refusing to 
avail himself of the plan of his jailer, who had been 
bribed to aid his escape ! And yet few are the per- 
sons in all history whose moral sense would not 
have been confused by such an offer. And, if the 
Athenian sage had faltered and used the proffered 
means of saving his life, we should have found, I 
will not say merely apologies for, but defences of 
the act even as a duty, — as, indeed, in thousands of 
similar cases has been done, and as most of us per- 
haps would be likely to do, if the case were to come 
home to ourselves to-day. But, such an example of 
unmoved integrity once set, humanity is true enough 
to recognize it as a higher order of virtue than flight, 
however guiltless, would have been, and to bow 
hefore it in admiring reverence, though few may 
have the courage to be its imitators. And when we 
come to that most admired character of all, the 
name highest and most beloved of history, what is 
it that has made Jesus to be regarded as the proto- 



26 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



type of all human perfections, worshipped indeed as 
God himself, and the word " Christian " to be a syno- 
nym e of all that is most elevated in virtue and most 
amiable in character ? What is it but that Jesus 
stood, like Divine Majesty itself, firm for the truth, 
unyielding before corruption and hypocrisy, gentle 
and forgiving, yet bearing faithfully the burdens of 
his mission, not flinching before violence nor swerv- 
ing for adulation, and meeting the cross with such 
a spirit of love and of triumph that he consecrated it 
as "a thing of beauty" forever? 

And, moreover, we admire such character as this 
for its own sake, for a majesty and divineness in 
itself, and not for any after good it may issue in. 
Nay, our admiration would be sensibly diminished, 
if we could for a moment suppose such a character 
sustained only by the hope of some after blessing as 
a reward ; nor can we conceive that all these excel- 
lences were practically annihilated at the grave by 
the soul's then passing into a condition of absolute 
repose. 

These two points, then, seem to be clearly estab- 
lished : first, in the midst of the toil, trials, and 
struggles of our lot there is an instinctive craving 
within us for rest ; and yet, secondly, the standard 
of life which we also instinctively place the highest, 
and which, at the bottom of our hearts, we do most 
really admire, is that in which there is the least of 
rest. Solve this seeming paradox, and we shall 
answer the question of what the soul's rest is. 

We crave for rest, it is true ; and the desire is s» 
universal that it must be regarded as instinctive. 



THE SOUL'S REST 



27 



But, like all our instincts, the desire is blind. In- 
stinct does not see and consciously choose its end, 
but gives only direction toward a certain satisfaction 
which human nature requires in order to fulfil its 
destiny. What is the extent and character of that 
satisfaction, not any one instinct or desire, but the 
whole nature, must determine. What, then, is the 
kind of rest which the human soul demands, and 
which alone can satisfy its desires ? 

Rest and motion, used in their primitive meaning, 
referring to material things, have both a relative and 
an absolute sense. A body is at absolute rest when 
it keeps the same position with regard to a fixed 
point in space ; in motion, when it departs from such 
a point. But two bodies, though both in motion, 
are relatively at rest when they keep the same posi- 
tion with regard to each other. Now, how can these 
terms, or more particularly the term "rest," be used 
of spirit, or of mental and moral life ? Not, I answer, 
in an absolute sense at all. The very word spirit 
implies life, movement, energy, — the very opposite 
of inertia and passivity, which are the characteristics 
of matter. To spirit, then, there can be no such 
thing as absolute rest. It can have, evidently, only 
relative rest, — the rest that depends on unison of 
movement. And the rest, therefore, which our hu- 
man spirits crave, and which can alone satisfy their 
needs, is not the rest of inactivity and inertia, but 
the rest of harmony. 

But harmony with what ? Harmony with the 
Divine Spirit, — harmony with the Universal Spirit, 
— whose aim and movements we may know by its 



28 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



pulse-beats in our consciousness ; by our best affec- 
tions and aspirations and the voice of conscience, 
which, as they assert their supreme authority within 
us, lay down also the laws of our being's guidance. 
There can be no rest for us but in obedience to 
these laws of our being, which are the laws of God ; 
no rest for our bodies but in obeying the laws 
of health, — not overtasking, not undertasking our 
physical powers, but giving to each just the action 
that it needs to keep it in vigorous, healthy life. 
And very much, I am satisfied, of this plaintive, 
unmanly sighing for rest, which often passes for 
religious aspiration, is nothing but the jar and creak- 
ing of shattered nerves. Yet physical laws are 
subordinate, and must sometimes be broken, in 
order that higher laws may be obeyed. For, again, 
there can be no rest for our moral and spiritual 
natures, — no rest for our hearts, no rest for our 
minds, no rest for our aspirations and consciences, 
— unless we faithfully follow their highest bent and 
laws of action. Have we evil habits and vices ? 
There can be no rest but in meeting them, strug- 
gling with them, conquering them. Are there social 
evils around us for which by omission or commission 
we are in any way responsible ? There can be no 
rest but in entering the field of conflict against 
them. Are there miseries to be alleviated, broken 
spirits to be healed, wrongs and oppressions to be 
righted, poverty to be enriched with sympathy, igno- 
rance with instruction ? Then there can be no rest 
but in taking upon ourselves, in some form, the 
office of the comforter and savior. Is there any 



THE SOUL'S REST 



29 



wisdom and light in the heavens above us, not yet 
penetrated »by our mental vision ? Then there is no 
rest for our intellects but in constant ascent, accord- 
ing to the laws of mental progress, through the 
successively ascending fields of infinite science. 
Finally, is there any ideal of life still above us, 
sometimes, perhaps, for a moment seized and then 
again floating away beyond our present reach, but 
radiant there in the clear sunshine, with heavenly 
beauty ? Then there can be no rest for our souls 
but in daily striving, aspiring, ascending, till we 
attain and realize it. 

The rest, then, that our natures crave is not the 
repose of passivity, of listlessness, of sleep, but the 
rest of healthy spiritual life, — of life in accordance 
with the laws of our being, which are laws of pro- 
gressive activity, and, if obeyed, put us into harmony 
with the spirit and peace of God. The rest that we 
want is like the rest you may have in a railroad car, 
where, though you may be moving with immense 
rapidity, yet with respect to the whole train you 
are relatively in repose, because you are in harmony 
with it and the mighty force that takes it forward. 
Or, better, it is the rest of the heavenly bodies, 
which, though all may be in rapid and varied move- 
ment, are yet at peace with regard to each other, 
because moving according to the harmony of a 
divine law. And such rest as this we can have, 
though in the midst of labor and trial and conflict. 
It is the rest to which Jesus invited the " weary 
and heavy-laden " ; the rest, not of those who have 
thrown their burdens off or would impose them 



30 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



upon others, but of those who have taken upon 
them the yoke of God's law, and find the " yoke 
easy " and the " burden light," because, through 
obedience to this law, a mighty strength and a 
mighty peace have come into their being. Such 
rest have martyrs had, while flames and tortures 
unspeakable destroyed with slow cruelty the body 
to let the spirit free. And such rest can every one 
of us possess, whatever our lot or toil or duty or 
trouble, who will bow unreservedly to the mission 
and the laws of the divine Spirit within us, and 
follow it by whatsoever path, through whatsoever 
conflicts, to whatsoever end it may lead. 

O ye " weary, heavy-laden " souls, return unto 
your rest! " Return!' — the word is well chosen. 
This rest is yours by the demand of your natures. 
It is yours by the original endowment and laws of 
your being. It is yours by your place in creation's 
plan. It is yours by the dreams of your youth, by 
the prayers that went up from the homes of your 
childhood. Return to it, — to this rest prefigured in 
your natures, promised, by the Highest Giver, in 
your earliest hopes of what your life might be, and 
still longed for, with secret longings unutterable, 
in your inmost hearts. You have tried, it may be, 
the rest of ease and the rest of travel ; tried the 
comforts and the luxuries of wealth ; tried the 
tempting path of fame ; tried the ways of selfish 
pleasure ; ay, tried, perhaps, the lusts of appetite : 
but the vulgar enjoyment of the hour once past, the 
selfish excitement over, your real self with you alone 
again, and there comes back, week in, week out, this 



THE SOUL'S REST 



31 



same old weariness of heart, emptiness of aim, and 
crying for a rest that none of these things can give. 
Let go these husks, then, and return to the old 
home love, to the dreams of your childhood, to the 
noble, heroic, faithful manly or womanly life that 
floated in ideal before the vision and won the ad- 
miration of your youth. Return to the highest 
demands of your natures, which are a revelation of 
God's demands upon you ; and, behold, the infinite 
peace of God shall flow without measure into your 
being, and give you the rest that is everlasting. 

January 20, 1861. 



Note. — This discourse was also preached in the Unitarian church 
in Washington, July 21, 1 861, the day of the first battle of Bull Run. 
As the congregation came out of the church, the booming of cannon 
could be distinctly heard across the Potomac. 



III. 



GOD IN NATURE. 

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was 
upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the 
face of the waters." — Gen. i., 2. 

" Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow." — Matt, vi., 28. 

I have coupled these texts together as a con- 
venient indication of the course of thought I wish 
to present this morning on the manifestation of 
God in Nature, or the Divinity of the Material Uni- 
verse. 

Whether we look into these old Jewish records or 
into the still older Hindu, into the fables of Gre- 
cian Hesiod or the Eddas of Scandinavia, we find 
everywhere that the earliest problem of human 
thought which language has preserved is the prob- 
lem of creation, — the Whence and How of the uni- 
verse. We open the latest issues of the modern 
printing-press, and behold, in book and review, the 
great question of the scientific world to-day is this 
same old problem of the origin of things. The 
problem is not, perhaps, strictly a religious one 
either in its old or its new shape ; that is, all the 
immediate obligations of morality and practical re- 
ligion are clear enough, and would remain the same 
whether the world was made in six days or in six 



GOD IN NATURE 



33 



thousand years, or is still in process of making. And 
the better it will be for us, the sooner we arrive at 
that mental state wherein, careful only for the truth, 
we shall become indifferent as to the effect upon 
religion whether this or that particular theory of 
the universe shall finally be established. Still, this 
problem of creation, though not directly connected 
with religious practice, has always been, and is neces- 
sarily, associated with religious thought ; and there 
is such an interdependence among our faculties that 
it may well be doubted whether truth in thought 
does not finally connect itself with truth in charac- 
ter, and whether any religious sect can long con- 
tinue to hold, for the sake of its theological creed, a 
scientific falsehood without corresponding narrow- 
ness appearing somewhere in its moral and spiritual 
life. That, indeed, is a very limited view of the 
practical in religion which looks only to the giving 
of homilies that can be converted at once into daily 
habits. The well-balanced religious life, though it 
must always include outward work, yet is vastly 
more than that. It is a life of intellectual as well 
as of moral and spiritual fidelity. The springs of 
religion lie deep and are wide-spread; and that is 
but a superficial religious culture which does not 
plough into the subsoil and develop the riches of 
every field of our complex natures. 

We may find, then, ample grounds on which to 
discuss, even from a practical stand-point of religious 
truth, the theme to which I ask your attention in 
this discourse. 

And, first, see what a change has been wrought, 



34 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



by the progress of knowledge, in the popular view 
of this subject. Egypt, Greece, and Rome, which 
successively led the human race in civilization and 
enlightenment, all divided the administration of the 
material universe among many deified rulers. The 
earth, the air, the sea, and woods they peopled 
with unseen beings, by the immediate fiat of whose 
wills the various changes and operations of nature 
took place. Whether the sea raged or stood still, 
whether the wind blew from the north or from the 
south, whether the earth clothed itself in its spring 
garments of green or the autumn leaf fell sere to 
the ground, a god, a spirit, was believed to be there, 
immediately and consciously acting. But science 
has changed all this. Mother Ceres has been ban- 
ished from the earth, and her tender housewifely 
care of the spring buds, summer flowers, and autumn 
harvests is now only a beautiful myth. We have 
not yet traced the laws of the wind ; but we do 
not believe longer that any capricious ^Eolus locks 
them up in his cave, and lets them out at his pleas- 
ure. No Neptune lives for us in the sea, to com- 
mand its waves. No Aurora breaks for us each 
morning the gates of darkness, bringing light and 
life upon the earth. In place of these beautiful, 
poetic imaginings, we now have positive science ; for 
this simple faith, we now have demonstrated facts ; 
instead of these living, personal deities, we now have 
physical laws ; and, (may it not be added ?) instead 
of religion, we have — too often — only philosophy. 

Now, the advance of science is neither to be stayed 
nor deprecated. We must submit our theologies to 



GOD IN NATURE 



35 



its discoveries and analysis as well as all other de- 
partments of our knowledge and experience. We 
must modify and advance our theological views to 
conform to the assured conclusions of science, or 
else our religious faith must suffer detriment ; and, 
because this has not generally been done, we may 
well doubt whether Deity is to Christendom so real 
and vital a presence as to the devotees of these old 
religions whom we have been so forward to commis- 
erate and enlighten. The unity of God is a great 
truth ; but, if we cannot hold it without sacrificing 
the universality of God, then it may well be ques- 
tioned whether, in our entire view of the divine 
nature, we have made much advance upon the relig- 
ious beliefs of Greece and Rome. If we cannot 
maintain ourselves at the elevation of Jesus, where 
with clear vision we can gaze at the spiritual one- 
ness of Deity and at the same time feel that he 
who inhabiteth eternity and sitteth upon the arch 
of the heavens dwells also in the lowliest human 
soul and clothes the humblest lily of the field, then 
we may well go back to learn the preparatory les- 
sons that heathenism has for us. If we cannot 
believe in the unity of God without falling into those 
dreary theological systems which banish him from 
the earth and from the daily changes of nature to 
a distant throne in the remotest heavens, from which 
we must imagine him to rule and judge the universe 
with the cold, calculating reserve of a human sover- 
eign ; if we cannot hold the unity of God without 
giving him form, and circumscribing him in space, 
and picturing him with all the attributes of a finite 



36 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ruler, — then I am not sure that it would not be 
better for us to leave our Bibles for a while and 
take some lessons in the warmer faith of the old 
Pagan mythology. Better than this one cold, dis- 
tant, deified despotism the myriad human deities 
of Greece and Rome. Better let go the unity of 
God than his universality. 

But we need not take this backward step. Chris- 
tianity appears originally to have held the recogni- 
tion of both ideas. A fine statement of their unity 
was made in the apocryphal book called " The Wis- 
dom of Solomon," before the advent of Jesus. But 
the Christian Church and Christian theology have 
too often failed to comprehend this finely harmo- 
nized doctrine, which Jesus by virtue of his spiritual 
genius seems to have assumed, of universal and 
infinite unity, — of one spirit pervading the whole 
universe, of mind and matter, of nature and man. 
In order to prove one creator and governor of the 
world, Deity has been banished outside of the world. 

Incalculable harm, in one way, has been done to 
religion by such works as Paley's. You know the 
old argument, the analogy drawn from a watch : if 
a person should stumble suddenly upon a watch, 
and examine its mechanism, and see how exquisitely 
all its parts were adapted to each other and each to 
its office, he must necessarily conclude that it was 
the work of an intelligent contriver and maker. In 
like manner, as the argument runs, from studying 
the universe, — its adaptation of part to part and 
each part to its object, — we must conclude that it, 
too, is the work of an intelligent author. Now, the 



GOD IN NATURE 



37 



universe unquestionably discloses marks of nicest 
adaptation and the most consummate wisdom. But 
there is always danger, in using the argument from 
analogy, that we push it too far ; and this is pecul- 
iarly the danger when we reason from finite things 
to infinite. And so the majority of persons, I sup- 
pose, who adopt Paley's argument, follow it up till 
they have pictured to themselves the whole act and 
plan of creation, and creation and creator have be- 
come as definite conceptions to them as the making 
and maker of a watch. And, going so far, it is 
almost impossible that they shall not push the anal- 
ogy still farther ; and, since a watch, having once 
been made and its machinery set in motion, passes 
out of the maker's hands, to go henceforth by the 
forces brought together and shut up within it, so 
they conceive that the world, having been made 
and put into operation by its maker, was left hence- 
forth to go of itself, in accordance with certain forces 
and laws impressed upon it in the beginning. More- 
over, this analogical result seems to harmonize with 
the Mosaic account of creation ; and hence the 
Christian Church has very generally accepted it, and 
branded as heretics all who could not square their 
opinions on this intricate subject of cosmogony by 
the childish belief that the world was made like a 
watch. 

But, in the presence of modern science, how 
puerile all this is ! Let us suppose an omniscient, 
all-powerful Creator ; a Being infinite in wisdom, 
whose every impulse and every thought at every 
moment must be equally and absolutely perfect, and 



38 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



no act of whom, on account of this infinite per- 
fection, could ever fall a hair-breadth short of its 
intent. Shall we think of such a Being as com- 
pelled, like imperfect, plodding man, to weigh means 
against results, to study effects, to sit down, as it 
were, to deliberate, to form a plan of the universe, 
and then mechanically to construct the universe 
thereby ? And when to the conception of such a 
Being the attribute of omnipresence is added, how 
can we think of him, the all-comprehending, the 
all-pervading spirit and energy, as shut out, by any 
mechanism external to himself, from any part of 
creation, from any atom of matter, from any point of 
space, from any manifestation of life ? Throw away, 
I beseech you, this god, that only comes in to round 
a syllogism or to flank an analogy. It is an idol, as 
much as the wooden or brazen images of heathen- 
dom. Confessedly, this whole analogical argument 
only proves an author of the universe : it does not 
reach the Infinite. Moreover, as an argument, it is 
irremediably vitiated by the fact that the watch 
itself, which is assumed as the known side of the 
analogy, involves all the mysteries which the anal- 
ogy is to explain. An intelligent mind must have 
put together all these wheels and cogs and bal- 
ances : that is true. But what is the secret power 
that holds those shining metallic atoms so solidly 
together ? What is that force we call the elasticity 
of the spring ? What gives hardness to the wheels, 
that they act and react upon each other with un- 
varying order? We must fathom all these secrets 
before we have found out the infinite God. And 



GOD IN NATURE 



39 



the question is not whether these various forces are 
not ultimately to be referred to an infinite Being as 
cause, but how they are related to such a Being 
now. 

Again, the popular conception of the relation 
between the universe and Deity meets another ob- 
jection. No sooner have people satisfied themselves 
of the harmony of what they call their natural and 
revealed ideas of God — that is, the harmony be- 
tween the conception of a Creator making the world 
by a specific act, as a man makes a watch, and the 
account in the first chapter of Genesis — than Sci- 
ence steps in and says, "With my divining-rod, I 
have read the secrets of the earth, — yea, the deep 
things of God that were written on the stones and 
in the great mountains ages before the Twelve 
Tables of Moses' Law were made or Adam became 
a living soul ; and I declare unto you that neither in 
six days nor in six thousand thousand was the earth 
created, and that by no specific, clearly defined acts, 
but through an almost infinite series of progressive 
stages of action, did it come to its present form." 
Nay, there is a theory of the universe, sometimes 
stigmatized as an attempt to account for creation 
without the hypothesis of a creator, which asserts 
that the whole universe is developed, under the 
operation of physical laws, from a condition of 
simple primordial atoms as germs, like a tree from 
a seed or a bird from an egg ; and millions upon 
millions of years would not take us back to the 
beginning of the process. This theory may not yet 
be scientifically established, but how soon it may 



40 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



be no one can tell. And no religious opinions and 
prejudices ought to stand, or can stand permanently, 
in the way of its establishment, if science can show 
it to be true. Clearly, then, we must be prepared 
to change our conception of the relation between 
the universe and Deity. Already, by the advanced 
positions which science has taken, we are driven to 
this dilemma : we must either abandon our old ana- 
logical idea of God as a creator and ruler of the 
universe, in the common acceptation of those words, 
— an idea of him formed from the nature of a finite 
being, — or else we shall be compelled to place him 
farther and farther from the universe, until he is 
banished to the remotest corner of conceivable 
space, and the period of his active power is pushed 
to the utmost limit of conceivable time, and he shall 
have become an infinitesimal rather than an infinite 
Being ; and then will be fulfilled the prediction of 
a certain school of philosophy, that religion, as a 
childish superstition of our race, will, as the race 
matures, yield up her sovereignty, and finally disap- 
pear before the full light of science. 

That this fate will ever befall humanity at large 
I have no fears. For, although no fair deductions of 
science, however much they may conflict with our 
religious notions, can be denied, I should still main- 
tain that religion, properly conceived, represents the 
normal attitude of the human soul, and is not to be 
lost out of the world so long as human nature en- 
dures. Between science and true religion there can 
be no conflict : it is only our false religious ideas 
that science winnows away. The right adjustment 



GOD IN NATURE 



41 



will come at last. For the future of the race, then, 
I have no fears. But for ourselves in the midst of 
the present conflict between the old and the new, — 
how are we, as individuals, to keep our own faith in 
the ever-living presence of Deity fresh and active, 
notwithstanding the invincible batteries of modern 
science? how save ourselves from the calamity of 
accepting an atheistic world ? How shall we receive 
the latest conclusions of scientific research, — ay, 
be ready to receive all possible future conclusions, 
— and still with the old Hebrew proclaim that "the 
earth was without form, and void," till "the Spirit 
of God moved upon the face of the waters," or, with 
Jesus' religious sensitiveness to natural beauty, see 
the hand of God in the gorgeous array of the lilies ? 

My answer to this question is that, contrary to 
what has been the prevailing teaching of Christian 
theology, we must bring God back into the universe. 
We must conceive of Deity as in nature, — not simply 
as at the beginning of it or as over it, but as in it ; 
as a power pervading its laws, energies, unfoldment, 
life. Science is no atheist. It has no conflict with 
the existence of Deity, — only with our analogical con- 
ception of him as creator of the world, according to 
a prearranged plan, in a definite period of time, and 
by a definite series of acts, as a great Machinist. 
Science finds everywhere gradation, development, 
progress from cause to effect, — a law of evolution 
instead of a miracle ; but it, none the less, every- 
where finds that incomprehensible power which re- 
ligion has named Deity. Wherever we find law, 
wherever we find order and system and beauty, there 



42 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



we find elements in their very nature eternal, divine. 
In the orbits of the stars, in the budding and flower- 
ing of trees, in the upspringing grass and ripening 
fruit, in the strata of the mountain ranges, in the 
speechless sublimity of the Alps and the spoken 
sublimity of the ocean, — in short, wherever in nat- 
ure the imaginative or the scientific eye be cast, we 
are reading no past thought of a distant, historic 
Deity, but standing face to face with the vital po 
tency of a present Omnipotence. Science opens 
a way into the universe, — not that God may go out, 
but that we may see him all the more clearly there. 

And, first, we are to bring God back into the uni- 
verse by asserting his immanence in matter. And 
by this I mean something more than that he is im- 
manent in the material universe. I do not mean 
that the universe is made, as it were, something apart 
from him, and that then he as Spirit flows in to dwell 
in it ; nor, again, that chaotic matter first exists as 
something apart from him, into which a vitalizing 
divine Spirit is afterwards infused. But I mean that 
matter is by its very nature penetrated and pos- 
sessed by a divine energy ; that it is not an absolute 
creation, not a beginning de novo, but a manifestation 
of, or issue from, the one eternal substance of Deity ; 
and that, could we get back behind all specific 
forms of matter to its primordial essence, we should 
find it an inherent, eternal part of the divine nature. 
It is impossible for our minds to conceive of the 
absolute creation or annihilation of matter. Every 
existing, every possible form of matter is subject to 
change, — to beginning and end. Decay, departure, 



GOD IN NATURE 



43 



death, as also new forms of life, are all around us. 
The rock crumbles to pieces and is converted to 
soil, and by and by, in another form, its particles 
are drawn up to color the rose or to flavor our fruit ; 
mountains are reared and worn again to plains ; even 
the stars, our emblem of eternity, are sometimes lost 
from their courses. But, in all this round of endless 
change, not one atom of matter is ever lost ; nor 
can we conceive how even Omnipotence can destroy 
it or create. There seems, in fact, to be no reason, 
either analogical or ontological, or from the human 
consciousness, for supposing that matter in its es- 
sence is not equally eternal with spirit, or mind. 
Consciousness gives us no idea of the absolute cau- 
sation of matter, but only of mind acting upon matter 
already existing. The greatest a priori reasoners 
have affirmed the eternity of matter. Even though 
we were to accept the first chapter of Genesis as 
a literal account of the process of creation, we do not 
get beyond the creation of the existing world, — that 
is, the beginning of a certain order, or of determinate 
forms, of matter, and not the absolute origin of mat- 
ter itself ; while experience and analogy both go to 
show that matter — if, indeed, it be not necessary to 
the existence of spirit — is, at least to our human 
comprehension, necessary to its manifestation and 
expression. 

I would say, therefore, that spirit and matter are, 
in their essence, equally eternal, and equally ele- 
ments in the primal origin of things. We might 
call the one the active, the other the passive side of 
the divine nature. In absolute Being, or God, we 



44 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



may conceive that the two coexist in perfect unity, 
making indeed one substance ; and, in any form of 
manifested being, the two must be wedded before 
spirit can come to personal consciousness or give 
any other utterance of itself. Without matter, spirit 
could never be organized into soul : without spirit, 
matter would remain forever "without form, and 
void." * 

Here, then, we have the key to the true process 
of creation, — still, for convenience, using the word 
" creation," though the idea be essentially changed ; 
and the first chapter of Genesis, childish consid- 
ered as science, becomes sublime, considered as 
a poetic representation of creative activity. "The 
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." 
Spirit is pictured as brooding over the chaotic mass 
of matter. It moves upon chaos ; and, behold, the 
chaotic mass takes shape, and separates into a 
myriad forms of life and beauty. The upper and the 
nether firmaments, stars and planets, land and seas, 
herb, grass, and tree, fish, bird, and beast, all come, 
through the slow gradation of ages, in their order ; 
and all in some sort prefigure, and prepare the way 
for, something higher, higher yet, till we come to 
man. Creation, beginning with the primal germ of 
being, is the action of spirit, or mental energy, upon 
matter, by which matter becomes organized into 
various forms of being, activity, and life. It is only, 
indeed, with regard to our human comprehension, 

♦Infinite Being, as Spinoza maintained, may have many other attributes; but 
these two, mind and matter, are the only ones that come within human cognizance. 



GOD IN NATURE 



45 



that we speak of its having a beginning. With ref- 
erence to absolute Being and the whole infinity of 
things, creation can have no beginning and no end. 
It is only a term to mark a certain change of form, 
— a kind of change which is going on from everlast- 
ing to everlasting. Spirit, by its very nature, is an 
organizing, vitalizing force. By its own inherent 
impulse, it must ever seek to express itself in law, 
symmetry, order, and life. And the whole history 
of the material universe may be summed up as the 
effort of spirit to possess and vitalize matter, and 
so to organize itself in material forms. 

Hence, as a second means through which we are 
to keep our faith fresh in the presence of God in 
nature, we are to consider him as manifested in 
the laws of nature. Christian theology has laid so 
much stress upon the supernatural as the peculiar 
method of divine manifestation that it has tended 
to establish, has in fact directly inculcated, the doc- 
trine that the regular and ordinary operations of 
nature are less immediate revelations of the divine 
character ; that what we call natural physical laws 
were ordained, indeed, of God in the beginning, yet 
now only in a distant and secondary way execute his 
intent. But, in reality, when science has revealed to 
us a law or taught us to observe a method of nature, 
we have reached no past thought or plan of Deity, 
but his present action. What we name the plan of 
the universe is no fore-thought of God, but our after- 
thought. The laws of nature are no mould into 
which the past thought of the Almighty has been 
run, but the immediate outgoing of his present 



46 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



energy, the divine purpose and thought in process 
of action at this very moment. Every new physical 
law discovered, instead of being another secondary 
cause and so removing the great First Cause still 
farther off, ushers us, in fact, into the more imme- 
diate presence of divine power. Science may speak 
of secondary causes, but to Religion there is no such 
thing. Where Science shrinks from naming it, 
Religion recognizes the omnipresent, all-pervading 
One, bows its head, and adores. 

And so, while we have escaped their errors, we 
may still have all the advantages of the old relig- 
ions. We may hold to the divine unity, and yet not 
lose the more practical doctrine of the divine uni- 
versality. Nature, though no longer peopled with 
divinities, is filled, inspired with Divinity. One om- 
nipresent Power pervades and energizes all things. 
We do not call him Neptune, but the same Deity 
still controls the tidal waves and rules the sea. The 
offices of Ceres and Aurora, of all benign, all fatherly 
and motherly providences, are henceforth combined 
in one great Love that streams forever through the 
universe. One power clothes the fields with sum- 
mer green and mantles them with winter snow ; 
brings the seasons in their order, and provides 
tender care for every great and every little thing ; 
moulds the great orbs of the stars ; paints no less 
the lily's leaf and the passing cloud. 

Do we ask at once for absolute perfection, — that 
all disorders, both from man and nature, be at once 
discarded ? We ask for an impossibility, for a finite 
and temporal infinity. Perfection is our aspiration : 



GOD IN NATURE 



47 



toward that, the whole universe is advancing; and 
infinite wisdom and infinite benevolence are justified 
so long as the aim and movement of things are 
upward. 



September 8, 1861. 



IV. 



MERCY AND JUDGMENT. 

"Their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one 
another." — Rom. ii., 15. 

The moral integrity of human society is kept, in 
great measure, by the reciprocal action of the two 
sentiments, justice and mercy. No individual, per- 
haps, can ever really forgive himself for any lapse in 
his own conduct from the strict line of rectitude ; 
but, with regard to one another's conduct, we are not 
only made judges, but have the power also of par- 
don. More than this: we are forbidden to judge, 
unless our judgment be tempered with mercy. This, 
I take it, is the meaning of what both Jesus and 
Paul say with reference to judging the character of 
others ; for, so long as we are endowed with a moral 
sense, — that is, so long as we are human, — it is im- 
possible that we should make absolutely no judgment 
of one another's conduct. We are so constituted by 
nature that we are necessarily judges of each other. 
It is, indeed, by this interaction of conscience upon 
conscience that the moral education of society pro- 
ceeds : only, it is provided that, as we are to judge 
one another, so we are to forgive one another ; as 
every man's conscience is to exact entire justice 
from every other man, so every man's heart is to be 



MERCY AND JUDGMENT 



49 



ready with pity and pardon for another's frailty. 
Judgment is necessary, but mercy is to " rejoice 
against judgment"; "for he shall have judgment 
without mercy that hath showed no mercy." 

In the common order of things in human society, 
we see continually how these two forces are -made to 
balance and regulate each other. Justice and mercy, 
exaction and forgiveness, penalty and pardon, ac- 
cusation and excusation, the father's law, the 
mother's love, — between these two poles flow the 
moral life-currents of humanity. That action would 
be absolutely right which should be vitalized alike 
from both of these sources, — which should combine 
justice and mercy in such perfect proportions that 
they should flow into one sentiment and be undistin- 
guishable from each other ; which should be kind 
because it is just, and just because it is kind. In 
the last analysis of moral issues, the action which is 
conformed to the strictest equity is the highest be- 
nignity. With absolute Being, we can conceive no 
conflict between justice and tenderness. In a per- 
fect Being, justice would be but the impartial distri- 
bution of love. 

But, in man, these two sentiments are not yet 
brought to this perfect oneness. Both are present, 
and both are necessary to the well-being of society ; 
but the moral balance between them is preserved by 
their action and reaction upon each other. The 
exactions of justice become sometimes severe. 
Then mercy pleads, often with a mistaken tender- 
ness, — with blind excess of good will doing a wrong, 
which only a severer equity can set right again. 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



And so there is conflict, struggling of force with force : 
we accuse and yet excuse one another ; but, by and 
by, justice gets done, and mercy also triumphs. 

Society is most healthy when these two forces are 
most nearly balanced, — when mercy follows most 
swiftly upon severity, or, better, when the spirit of 
love goes along with the spirit of accusation. The 
scribes and Pharisees would have left the woman 
whom they accused of sin fallen and hopeless. 
Jesus lifted her up, and said unto her, "Go, and sin 
no more." Without looking with weak indulgence 
on the past, he yet opened to her the hopes of the 
future. In this act, he shows us the exquisite mean 
between the moral judgment that condemns the sin 
and the moral compassion that reclaims the sinner. 
But society has not yet learned to keep this golden 
mean. We are continually running between the 
two extremes of unjust severity and mistaken indul- 
gence; in one case exercising judgment without 
mercy, in the other showing mercy without judg- 
ment. 

First, we exercise judgment without mercy. 
Great, almost irreparable, is the wrong that is done 
by condemnation of the vicious without appeal. 
With the doors of our houses, we shut against them 
also, in many cases, the doors of repentance and ref- 
ormation. Keeping them from the paths of honest 
industry till they have established an honest charac- 
ter, we force them into courses of dishonor, and give 
them no chance to win a good name. In the sever- 
ity of our judgment upon their past lives, we con- 
demn them to sin as a punishment, and to a dark 



MERCY AND JUDGMENT 



51 



future of misery and moral despair ; and with moral 
despair comes moral ruin. What worse fate can we 
conceive for a man who has run the ways of wicked- 
ness and learned their barrenness, and now desires 
sincerely to regain his virtue and his reputation, 
than to find all the avenues to virtuous associations 
barred against him ? Suppose that the prodigal son 
in the parable — when, weary of sin, the memory of 
the old home love and innocence had been revived 
within him, and he had resolved to return to his 
father's house — had found, instead of the welcome 
which he did receive, the father's heart hardened 
against him and the door closed, and no opportunity 
given him for expressing his contrition and making 
amends for the wrong he had done : ivould he have 
been saved? What burden could have been imposed 
upon him more fitted than such a repulse to crush 
out every reviving memory and desire of better 
things, — every aspiration for the old home virtue 
and pure domestic joys ? Yet this is what society — 
society, too, that is called Christian — is doing every 
day. Thousands of human beings are this moment 
kept in the degradation of vice, because no human ear 
will listen to their penitence and no hand is reached 
out, to welcome and aid their returning footsteps. 
Nay, their own fathers and mothers often suffer 
their hearts to close against these their erring chil- 
dren. I doubt not there are those among the vi- 
cious and abandoned of this city who would this 
hour gladly go back to the pure homes of their 
childhood, if they could be sure that they would still 
find there a father's and a mother's heart. But they 



52 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



feel that the house would be shut against thercv 
that every honest mode of livelihood shrinks from 
them, that even this so-called house of God is not 
open for such as they ! God pity them, for they 
find few friends and little pity on earth ! 

On the other hand, though judgment without 
mercy is so ruinous, not less ruinous is mercy, or 
compassion, without moral judgment. The safe- 
guards of society are at once torn down and the 
whole fabric exposed to destruction, so soon as the 
vicious are allowed without question to stand on 
the same footing and receive the same honors with 
the virtuous. We can do no greater wrong to so- 
ciety than when, through a fiction of words, we call 
men moral by relaxing the severity of the moral law. 
Without elevating them in the least, we debase the 
moral standard of the whole community, and excuse 
them from all effort to elevate themselves. If men 
are thieves, let us call them so, no matter how high 
they stand in social position : only be sure they are 
thieves before we call them so. If men are drunks 
ards and libertines, let us give them those names, 
though they be members of cabinets or churches : 
only be sure that the accusation is true before we 
repeat it. Nothing is so strong an indication of, as- 
well as help to, the corruption of public morals as 
the prevalent disposition to cover up flagrant vices 
and crimes under an evasive phraseology. Let it 
be understood that a lie is a lie, and not merely 
"misrepresentation" or "evasion," — words that have 
a much less culpable sound. The hard word theft, 
which is as destructive of a man's pretences to mo- 



MERCY AND JUDGMENT 



53 



rality, if it hit him fairly, as a well-aimed cannon ball 
is fatal to his body, is too often softened into 
-"embezzlement," "defalcation," "financial irregular- 
ity," — weak paper bullets which do little execu- 
tion. If a boy takes a loaf of bread from a baker's 
window, he is sent to jail as a thief. If a man steals 
a railroad, he goes at large ; and a considerable 
portion of society look upon him with admiration 
for his financial ability. If a young man is given to 
inebriety and lust, we call him " a little wild " ; and 
younger men and boys are rather left with the 
impression that to be " a little wild " is the proper 
thing for a young man. Now, all such concealment 
of vice under fine names is weakly to excuse it ; and 
weakly to excuse vice is to put a premium upon it. 
Let us not deaden the sting of a just accusation of 
guilt by words of velvet. Let us use the plain 
Anglo-Saxon terms : they are the words that, true 
and sharp as steel, carry home to a man the real 
meaning of his deeds. The courtly Latin has been 
used to tell lies and cover up crime from the begin- 
ning of the English language. 

We must make it understood that sin is sin, and 
not merely an inherited taint of the blood ; that evil 
is evil, and not merely a misfortune of circum- 
stances ; that guilt is guilt, — to be got rid of, not by 
finely worded confessions of piety and theories of 
substituted punishment, but by real pain and strug- 
gle and hearty honest work. Let us not by any 
feeble sentimentality weaken the force of the old 
law, that "the way of the transgressor is hard." 
There are times when the greatest unkindness you 



54 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



could do a man would be to show him that you 
lightly excuse his vices. Many a mother smooths 
the road to ruin for her sons, because she overlooks 
too readily their childish faults. It isn't that she 
has too much love, too much heart, but that her love 
does not look through the far-seeing eye of moral 
judgment; her heart is not what Solomon calls "a 
wise and an understanding heart." No : let no mis- 
taken tenderness, public or private, blind us to the 
enormity of immoral deeds. For very self-preserva- 
tion, society must wear the ermine and sit in the 
seat of judgment. Let no man feel that the eye of 
the community is not upon him. Let no man feel 
that he can sin, and escape the court of public opin- 
ion. There may be forgiveness for him, but let him 
not feel that he is forgiven before he has been 
brought to trial. The accusation and the sentence 
must come before the pardon. If any will waste 
their substance in riotous living, let them know dis- 
tinctly that husks must be their food and the swine 
their company ; that only for such as return are the 
feasts and the joys of the Father's house. 

We see, then, that the moral judgment that 
condemns and punishes guilt, and the moral ten- 
derness that overlooks and pardons guilt, are equally 
injurious when they appear apart from each other. 
Many are the victims whom society has crushed 
apparently to moral death by the severity of a 
moral judgment, — just, perhaps, at first, but upon 
which no pardoning mercy followed. Equally many 
are the victims who have been surfeited to moral 
death by kindness, — who have been lured to their 



MERCY AND JUDGMENT 



55 



graves by friendly (so they were meant) excuses 
for their sins. The problem is to combine these 
two ; to be both just and kind at the same time ; 
to let the conscience pronounce with unflinching 
manly voice the word guilty, and execute with firm 
hand the punishment, while the heart trembles with 
its full motherly burden of healing and redeeming 
love. "Behold," exclaimed St. Paul, "the goodness 
and the severity of God ! " In that phrase, we have 
the wondrous unity we seek. In the divine laws, 
justice and mercy are brought into concord, are 
atoned. " On them which fell [i.e., who sinned], 
severity ; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue 
in his goodness : otherwise, thou also shall be cut off" — 
so severely kind are the great laws of God. Very 
pitilessly do they accuse us, if we violate them ; for a 
yielding pity would be our ruin. Very pitilessly do 
they condemn and punish us, if we continue in diso- 
bedience ; for the severity of our punishment is our 
salvation. And yet the same laws, if we will but 
turn to obedience, if we will continue in goodness, 
are our consolers and our healers. While we are 
scourged, we are blessed ; while we are accused, we 
are redeemed. Into the divine laws are infused 
equally the father's firmness and the mother's com- 
passion ; and, though they pronounce us sinful and 
condemn our sins, they yet fold strong arms of love 
around us to lift us up and save. 



March 16, 1862. 



V. 



SELF.SACRIFICE. 

"Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever 
shall lose his life shall preserve it." — Luke xvii., 23. 

No one saying of Jesus seems to have been 
impressed so deeply on the memory of his disciples 
as this. Six times does it appear in the Gospels in 
nearly the same words, and as having been uttered 
on several different occasions ; while the same senti- 
ment appears in many other forms, and is the key- 
note of many discourses. Paradoxical as is the 
sentence in expression, its meaning is clear. The 
word life, as every one must immediately see, is 
used in two senses : first, for the material, temporal 
life ; and, secondly, for the spiritual and eternal life. 
Hence, dropping the form of paradox, we should read 
the text thus : Whosoever shall seek to save his 
material and temporal life shall lose the higher and 
eternal life of the spirit ; and whosoever subordi- 
nates and stands ready even to let go his material 
and temporal life shall find the higher and eternal 
spiritual life. In other words, one may seek only 
the pleasures and pursuits of this life of earth, be 
absorbed wholly in them ; but, if so, then this life 
of earth is his all. To say nothing of what is possible 
hereafter, here, at least, he loses the life of heaven, — 



SELF-SACRIFICE 



57 



loses the life of those nobler principles, pursuits, 
and joys that properly belong to spiritual and moral 
beings. On the other hand, if one's life is entirely 
subordinated to, swallowed up, and lost in these high 
motives of the spirit, then, though he may lose what 
the world regards as the necessities and triumphs 
of earthly success, he finds the fairer fortune, even 
here upon the earth, of that life which has no end. 

In my last discourse, I spoke of the sacrifice of 
Christ, — of the real efficacy of his blood toward 
the redemption of the world. Contrary to the 
customary theological teaching, I endeavored to 
show how his death, with its results, falls into natural 
harmony with the great providential laws of human 
progress ; and, explaining the doctrine of his sacri- 
fice thus, we saw how it culminated in this saying 
which I have taken for my text to-day, — " Whoso- 
ever is ready to lose his life shall find it." That is, 
the doctrine taught by the sacrifice of Christ is the 
doctrine of self-sacrifice, — rest not for salvation in 
the sacrifices made for you, but iit the sacrifices you 
make ; and it is to this subject, the true doctrine 
of self-sacrifice, that I wish to call your attention in 
the present discourse. 

Our thoughts at a time like this turn naturally, 
turn by necessity, to the topic of sacrifice. When 
every week is bringing us intelligence of battle-fields, 
with their marvellous tales of endurance and heroism, 
their horrors of carnage and blood, with a strange 
blending of a beautiful and divine tenderness there- 
with, we are led inevitably to the question, What is 
the meaning of all this destruction and agony and 



58 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



blood? Is there not some universal law by which 
the world is spiritually redeemed through suffering- 
and self-sacrifice? We can hardly, I think, however 
closely we may be cased in the old dogmas of atone- 
ment and redemption by blood, go through with the 
scenes of this national conflict without putting a 
more universal and rational idea into these doctrines ; 
while some of us, perhaps, will be brought to see 
a greater moral efficacy in the sacrifice of physical 
life than we have been wont heretofore to believe in. 
My own thoughts on this subject I find strikingly 
expressed by one * who went over the battle-field of 
Fort Donelson soon after that terrible contest ; and, 
though the printed sermon in which they are con- 
tained has doubtless been read by many of you, 
I will yet quote the exact words, because they have 
more vivacity coming from one who spoke of what 
he himself saw. "As I went over this battle-field," 
he says, " and thought on the dead heroes and of all 
they died for, I kept repeating over each one, ' He 
gave his life a ransom for many ' ; and I wondered, 
when I thought of how we had all gone astray as 
a people, and how inevitable this war had become, 
in consequence, as the final test of the two great 
antagonisms, whether it may not be true in our 
national affairs as in a more universal sense, — ' with 
out the shedding of blood there is no remission of 
sins.' And so, by consequence, every true hero 
fallen in this struggle for the right is also a saviour 
to the nation and the race." And do we not all feel 
that there is a deep truth in this statement, and that. 

* Robert Collyer, Unitarian Monthly Journal, April, 1862. 



SELF-SACRIFICE 



59 



the language is as reverent as it is true and tender ? 
Not indeed that every soldier who falls for a right- 
eous cause is put on the same level with Jesus, but 
that both fall by the same law of redemption through 
sacrifice. The rudest stone thrown into the air falls 
to the earth by the same law that draws Jupiter 
through the infinite spaces of the heavens, but that 
is not to put the stone on the same grade of exist- 
ence with the planet. What is meant is that who- 
ever gives his life for the right enters by that act, 
according to the elevation of his motive, into the 
spirit of the sacrifice of Christ, and helps, in propor- 
tion to the worth of his life, to redeem the world from 
error and from sin. The more precious the life, the 
more valuable becomes the testimony, the greater the 
price ; and the greater also — for divine providence 
balances every account with perfect exactness — the 
moral value which the world receives in return : the 
costlier the blood, the greater the redemption. Yet 
we may be allowed to feel that not even the 
humblest and obscurest man who gives his life for 
the right falls in vain. And I speak not now of 
what will be attained by a victory of arms, but of 
the moral worth of the mere act of sacrifice. No 
sacrifice, not even the smallest, falls fruitless. The 
poorest woman, who with her tears sends forth her 
sons to battle, does something for the remission of 
our country's sins ; and the blood of the unnamed 
private soldiers, trickling unnoticed and neglected 
into the soil where they bravely fell, shall yet spring 
up a fountain of pure water, clear as crystal, to 
cleanse us from the foulest iniquities. 



6o 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



Paul somewhere teaches the doctrine that, by the 
death of Jesus, God's righteousness was made mani- 
fest ; that, by permitting so holy and perfect a being 
to suffer a cruel and ignominious death at the hands 
of evil men, God showed his love of goodness and 
his hatred of sin. In ordinary times, it seems a 
strange, dark doctrine ; and I remember when, on 
one occasion, our theological professor, by a lapsus 
linguae, reversed the phrases, and said, " Paul taught 
that God, by permitting the violent death of so holy 
a being as Christ, showed his love of sin and hatred 
of goodness," a member of the class exclaimed that 
that was a more logical statement than the one 
he meant to make. And so at first sight it seems. 
We are at least moved to exclaim : " If God had 
wished to manifest his righteousness, would he 
not have saved the righteous being, and brought 
the guilty to destruction ? How, pray, did he show 
his love of goodness by permitting goodness to be 
sacrificed, or his hatred of sin when he allowed sin 
to triumph ? " But the criticism, though natural, 
is superficial. Paul spoke out of a deep and extraor- 
dinary experience, and it is only when events call 
forth a deeper life than we commonly know in our 
own souls that we understand the transcendent 
truth of his thought. That truth, I think, is made 
clear to us now. God's righteousness is manifested 
by the greatness of the sacrifices which he demands 
shall be made for it. He shows his love of good- 
ness by infusing into human hearts a spirit which is 
willing and firm to endure the most cruel agony 
and death rather than to forswear the good and the 



SELF-SACRIFICE 



6l 



true. He shows his abhorrence of evil by nerving 
human souls with a strength almost omnipotent, 
and capable of bearing tortures unspeakable rather 
than to yield to the seductions of evil. It is in 
morals as in material things : value is measured by 
the price paid. 

So, when God calls upon men to give for the 
truth, to give for righteousness, those things which 
are counted the dearest among earthly possessions, 
he shows that he counts truth and righteousness as 
dearer than all things else. Wealth is dear: men 
will toil early and late for it ; and, to a certain ex- 
tent, we are bid by the divine laws to seek it for 
the better comfort of our bodies and the higher re- 
finement of our minds. But the same divine laws 
tell us clearly that virtue is dearer, for you must pay 
the whole price of your wealth rather than lose your 
virtue. Home and family are dear : what, indeed, 
is more precious than these little household struct- 
ures which your hearts have builded ? They are 
dearer than your wealth, for you seek wealth that 
you may adorn and elevate these ; and you instinc- 
tively call the man worse than mean who lets his 
dollars stand between him and his home. And yet 
you let go home and family, when you recognize a 
higher voice calling you to service in the broader 
household of your country or humanity. You tear 
yourself from the cradle of your own child that you 
may save the liberties of strangers' children. Wife, 
sister, father, mother, — you give them all up ; for it 
is better that you see them in want, or see them no 
more, than that all the households in the land should 



62 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



be imperilled by the outbreak of national wickedness, 
or continue to stand under the traitorous protection 
of a flag stained with crime against domestic sanc- 
tity. Life is dear, — this life of the body on the 
earth. Instinctively, we cling to it. We let go 
everything that we have gained and toiled for a 
whole life long rather than let go the life itself. Of 
all temporal things, it is counted dearest ; and, as 
men advance in civilization, they grow into the opin- 
ion that life, of all things, is sacred and inviolable. 
We may, under certain conditions, take men's prop- 
erty, we may take them from their homes, we may 
take their liberties, but life is the last thing we can 
take ; and many there are who deny that the right 
ever comes to man to take it at all. Life, then, is 
held to be the most precious and inviolable of 
human possessions. But see what vast numbers 
there have been and are — the brave army of sol- 
diers and the still braver army of martyrs — who 
hesitate not to pay this highest price of all for the 
sake of truth. So is it shown that truth, that prin- 
ciples of right, are valued above all things, — above 
wealth, above home and family, above life. 

And thus it is that by the sacrifice of these 
things — by the sacrifices and sufferings and death 
of the righteous — the righteousness of God is made 
manifest. By the value of the things we are called 
upon, by our higher natures, to give rather than to 
yield the truth, or in order to ransom us from evil, 
does God show the price he sets upon goodness and 
his abhorrence of iniquity. " What shall a man 
give," exclaimed Jesus, "in exchange for his soul?" 



SELF-SACRIFICE 



63 



No answer was needed, for every true man's heart 
answers that there is nothing costly enough to 
purchase that. The kingliest blood, the manliest 
form of flesh, cannot be weighed for a moment 
against the imperishable virtues and principles of 
the immortal spirit. Was the worth of Jesus' life 
inestimable ? How much more inestimable, then, 
the worth of that truth, of those principles, for the 
sake of which all the wealth and beauty of that 
life were given ! So we are learning now, through 
the severe lesson of tears and blood, how the ever- 
lasting righteousness of God may be manifested, 
not only by life, but by the sacrifice of life. We 
are learning, what perhaps in our ease and prosper- 
ity we were in danger of forgetting, that there are 
many things higher and holier than this life of flesh, 
and many things which we had better die rather 
than do or allow to be done. And we are learning 
also, through the costliness of the sacrifice, the 
infinite worth of those things for which the sacri- 
fice is made, — national justice and righteousness 
and purity. What, indeed, could better teach us the 
value that God sets upon these things than the 
greatness of the price we are now called to pay for 
them ? That the most precious blood of the race 
is being poured out in ransom ; that the bone and 
sinew of the nation are being laid upon its altar ; 
that lives of the richest promise, — the pride of our 
homes, the pride of our colleges, — lives rich in cult- 
ure, in virtue, of the noblest manhood and the saintli- 
est purity, — are being freely offered up in sacrifice, — 
herein, my friends, does God reveal to us the ines- 



6 4 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



timable worth of that national purification and of 
those eternal principles of righteousness for which 
this most precious of all offerings is being made. 
By the value of the life given may we measure the 
value of that higher life which is to be obtained. 

If we were to state the reason, then, of the ra- 
tional Christian doctrine of self-sacrifice, it would be 
this : that no private life can be of so much impor- 
tance as the life of humanity ; no personal ends 
can stand in the way of universal; no temporal, 
physical good is of any worth, which cannot be held 
consistently with eternal principles of right. The 
doctrine does not militate against the just claims of 
individuality. It enjoins no sacrifice of our personal 
being, no surrender of that sacred entity within 
us which we call our selfhood. Rather does it draw 
the line in our being between things temporal and 
things eternal, between material things and spiritual 
things, and bid us seek our life and ground our 
being in those things that are eternal and spiritual. 
Instead of demanding the sacrifice of our individu- 
ality, it bids us find it in a higher sphere. Letting 
go all merely private and selfish ends and aims, our 
being re-comes to us enlarged by universal relations 
and elevated into divine and everlasting proportions. 
Whether we continue to wear this body of flesh or 
whether it fall away, — in the body or out of the 
body, — it is of little moment. The personal exist- 
ence does not necessarily cease : the life goes on, 
only a certain manifestation of it vanishes. 

It is to be remembered, too, that goodness, man- 
hood, culture, are not sacrificed, only certain per- 



SELF-SACRIFICE 



65 



sonal and temporal manifestations thereof ; but the 
sublime qualities themselves are saved. Good 
men die, but goodness survives : good men die, that 
goodness may survive. Did holiness expire on the 
cross of Christ ? Did wickedness triumph in his 
death ? Nay, rather did holiness appear more 
holy. Jesus, lifted upon the cross, drew all men 
unto him ; while wickedness was stripped of its 
disguises and revealed in its real form, so odious 
that men shrank from it and could not help then 
but choose the truth. Are the virtues of your 
friends buried in their graves ? Nay, rather does 
death transfigure to your vision their characters, 
so that the grave generously veils their faults, 
while it allows their virtues to spring up with a di- 
viner grace and beauty. Of our soldiers, too, who 
fall in battle for the redemption of the nation, we 
forget the evil, and remember only that they were 
patriots and heroes. Blest mode of death, by which 
a man's sins are washed from memory by his own 
blood, and only his virtues — his single virtue, 
perhaps — survive in remembrance to describe his 
character and give example to the world ! And, as 
it seems to our vision, so doubtless it is in reality. 
No man, however worthless and ignoble he may 
have been, can give his life for a great cause with- 
out feeling that with his body something of his 
low selfishness drops off from him ; while a higher 
life, from the cause he suffers for, is infused into 
his spirit. This, too, must be the experience, not 
only of those who fall in the terrible contest, but 
of those who, though ready to fall, are yet spared. 



66 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



It is impossible but that something of the deeper 
and mysterious verities of life should have been re- 
vealed to them. The same observer whom I have 
already quoted says again : " I noticed one feature 
in this camp that I never saw before : the men do 
not swear and use profane words as they used to do. 
There is a little touch of seriousness about them. 
They have taken the Eternal Name for common 
purposes a thousand times ; and we feel as if we 
could say with Paul, ' The times of this ignorance 
God passed by.' But on that fearful day, when 
judgment-fires were all aflame, a voice said, 'Be 
still, and know that I am God ' ; and they are still 
under the shadow of that awful name." Thus it is 
that by sacrifice of this life of earth, even by the 
agony and sweat and blood of the battle-field, the 
higher verities of God and eternity are revealed. 

This doctrine of self-sacrifice is not only the 
doctrine of Christianity, but the doctrine of human 
nature. There is within us all, if we will but heed 
it, the germ of a natural instinct — let us call it 
divine — which prompts us to give ourselves for 
others ; and, however far short most of us may fall 
of its requirements, there is yet, I think, no man 
sunk so low in selfishness who will not appreciate 
and applaud a pure act of self-sacrifice performed 
by another. Let a stranger — one entirely unknown 
to the whole community — rush into the street, 
exposing his own life in order to snatch a child 
from being trampled to death by a frenzied horse, 
and instantly you know that stranger has a noble 
manhood, and you wish to take him by the hand 



SELF-SACRIFICE 



67 



and call him brother; and in all the crowd of by- 
standers is there one so mean, so insensible to every 
manly sentiment, as not instinctively to pray that 
he might have the same brave and self-forgetful 
spirit ? Human nature at its inmost heart is true, 
and teaches the same gospel as did Jesus, — "not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister*'; not to save, 
but to give ourselves. See how friend will give 
himself for friend. See how, in every true marriage 
relation, the husband sacrifices himself for his wife 
and wife for husband. See how father and mother 
give themselves unweariedly for their children. 
What, indeed, will not a mother do to save her 
child? Her own life, mature and rich in wom- 
anly usefulness, is not so precious to her as that 
yet unfolded bud of life in her arms. The world 
outside might say, Better that the child be sacrificed 
than the mother. But she judges and acts by a 
diviner instinct, and knows that, though she loses 
her life, she finds a higher life in the action of that 
love that prompts the sacrifice ; and, the sacrifice 
once made, the world outside acknowledges also the 
higher divinity of the deed. 

The subject is far from being exhausted ; yet time 
remains only for one thought in conclusion, and that 
an important one. There must be some object fo? 
which sacrifice is made, some worthy object ; else the 
doctrine finds no valid justification. Sacrifice for 
the mere sake of sacrifice is neither morality nor 
religion. It is only a poor asceticism which nar- 
rows, worries, and wearies the soul more than it 
elevates. But sacrifice of self for the sake of some 



68 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



object held dearer than self; sacrifice of self out of 
love for another, or love for the truth, or love for 
humanity, or love of country, — this it is that saves 
us ; for only this lifts us out of the circle of self, 
and gives our life a higher and more universal sweep. 
He who gives himself, not merely for the sake of 
self-discipline, but for the sake of love, finds a higher 
spirit of love pervading his whole being. He enters 
into a sphere of loftier affection, of holier action. 
He becomes one with those higher objects for which 
he gives himself, and so finds his life brought more 
into harmony with absolute and eternal aims. Who- 
ever dies for the truth dies that he may live more 
truthful ; whoever dies for humanity becomes more 
humane; whoever dies for God becomes more God- 
like. 

And, at this day, what our nation in its time of 
trial has needed, and still needs most of all, is the 
more openly avowed and inspiring purpose of a holy 
cause. Let our struggle be expressly for justice and 
humanity. As the armies of treason are gathered 
avowedly for the defence of a government founded 
on slavery, let the loyal men of the nation take up 
the challenge, and rally under the holier and more 
chivalrous title, " Defenders of liberty." Let the 
principles of our heroic fathers, — dead, but in their 
graves still speaking, — universally applied, even as 
they hoped and prophesied, inspire us. Not the 
Union alone, but " Liberty and Union, now and for- 
ever, one and inseparable,"— let that be our aim ; 
and so let us rally to make this land actually in the 
future what it has been only ideally in the past, the 



SELF-SACRIFICE 



69 



home where the oppressed of every nation and race 
and people may lift themselves up to manhood, and 
be counted members of one family on earth as they 
' are children of one Father in heaven. Not, I be- 
lieve, until we are ready to give ourselves for an 
object like this, shall we be strong enough for vic- 
tory or worthy to achieve it. 

Go forth in this faith, ye brave and freedom- 
loving hearts ! Your country calls you ; humanity 
needs you. And, though the human voices that 
summon you do not as yet all thrill with the stir- 
ring tones of freedom, yet go in faith. The notes 
of liberty, still somewhat muffled, shall yet ring clear 
throughout the land, and the world shall own you as 
the brave army of freedom's defenders. Meanwhile, 
rally to the summons that comes up from the deep 
instincts of your hearts ; rally to the cry of hu- 
manity crushed to the earth ; rally to the voice that 
comes down from the Lord God of justice in the 
heavens ! And for us who must remain at home, — 
let us not grow weary in upholding the great cause 
for which our country struggles ; let us stand firmly 
for the right ; and, though the result we pray for 
comes not yet, though wickedness seems still to 
triumph and the counsels of weak men to prevail, 
yet let us still labor on, giving ourselves — our word, 
our deed, our treasure — to our country's life, confi- 
dent that the right must win at last, and our sacri- 
fices be blessed with a victory for humanity and a 
peace that shall be enduring. And, oh, may the 
Spirit of Infinite Compassion instil into all our 
hearts the gentler mercies and humanities that the 



70 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



hour demands. Let the sick, the wounded, the 
suffering, the bereaved, have our constant sympathy, 
our constant care. Tender in heart, just and firm 
in aim, helpful in hand, so may we strive to do 
the duties of the time ; and so, over the ruin and 
waste, the shattered hearts and broken households 
of this conflict, may new life spring up, with fairer 
moralities and nobler societies and juster legisla- 
tion ! Though we go forth in weeping, yet, bearing 
precious seed, we shall doubtless come again with 
rejoicing, bringing with us costly sheaves of God's 
harvested truths. Our brothers, lifted upon the 
cross of battle, shall draw all our hearts to greater 
reverence for the sacred principles which they have 
died to save. From these red fields of carnage, 
planted with the blood of our bravest and best, shall 
spring up richer crops of virtue, even trees of right- 
eousness whose leaves shall be for the healing of 
all nations ; and, over the desolation caused by the 
demon of war, we will rear new and fairer temples 
to the Prince of Peace. 

May 10, 1863. 



Note. — This sermon was first preached in April, 1862, with the 
exception of the last two paragraphs. Besides its repetition at New 
Bedford, with these paragraphs added, it was given in fifteen other 
places in 1862 and 1863, where it was believed it might be of service 
in helping on the enlistment of soldiers for the national army. 



VI. 



THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS. 

" Then said Jesus, Let her alone : against the day of my burying 
hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you ; but me 
ye have not always." — John xii., 7, 8. 

Human nature is many-sided ; and religion, which 
in its full sense is the perfect satisfaction of all 
human needs, must offer some truth and present 
some obligations for every side. The natural affec- 
tions of our hearts have therefore an appropriate 
place in the complete religious life. I wish to speak 
to-day of the religion of the affections ; and the 
theme was well illustrated in the domestic scene in 
the house of Lazarus and his sisters as described in 
the Fourth Gospel, where Jesus, on being rebuked 
for allowing Mary to waste the precious ointment 
upon his person when it might have been sold and 
the proceeds given to the poor, rebuked in turn his 
critic, on the ground that, while the poor were 
always at hand and always to be cared for, there was 
also a legitimate place for the expression of personal 
affection, and that the legitimate time and manner of 
such expression, if allowed to pass, might never 
return. The poor are always with us : the demands 
for charity and general philanthropy are ever at 
hand. But our heart-friends do not remain always 



72 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



where they can receive the demonstrations of our 
love. 

It has been very commonly represented that relig- 
ion denies, as some religions have denied, these 
natural affections of the human heart which bind 
persons together in families, in friendships, in social 
and kindred circles. It is said that religion includes 
love to God and love to man,- — that is, a universal 
love for the whole race of mankind, — but that it 
does not embrace the special affections, such as the 
conjugal, filial, parental, friendly, fraternal, social, and 
the like. Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church 
considers it the highest grade of the religious life to 
forsake all ties made by such affections, and, in re- 
tirement from the affairs of the world and from all 
the joys and loves of a home, to devote one's self to 
works of so-called piety toward God and of general 
charity toward man. Its constant question of the 
world is, Why this waste of wealth on the selfish 
demands of the heart, when it might have been 
given to relieve the sufferings of the poor or to save 
souls from eternal torments ? Francis of Assisi, 
founder of the powerful order of Franciscan monks, 
renounced his father's rich inheritance, cut himself 
off from all ties of home and friendship, put on a 
robe of the coarsest cloth, and went through the 
country begging alms to build churches. He visited 
hospitals, and washed the feet and kissed the loath- 
some sores of lepers, left his bed empty and slept 
upon the ground, mixed his food with ashes to make 
it less palatable ; and for twenty years he travelled 
thus as a friendless beggar through many lands, 



THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 73 

doing, indeed, a vast missionary work and perform- 
ing acts of the most self-denying and self-mortifying 
charity, but all the time repelling and crucifying 
every natural affection and love of his heart. And 
this, says the Catholic Church, is the highest type 
of religion; and Francis of Assisi is made a saint. 
Elizabeth of Hungary abandoned her own children, 
dismissed her maids when she found herself loving 
them too well, and devoted herself to caring for the 
sick and giving alms to the children of the poor; 
and the Roman Catholic Church canonizes her there- 
for. There have been women who have wrought 
with equal patience, devotion, and self-sacrifice in 
their own homes, loving their own children and 
caring for their own households ; but the Church of 
Rome has never made them saints, nor does it even 
regard their faithfully and heroically performed 
duties as religious. There have been men who, 
without renouncing the world or the natural life of 
the heart, have performed as great deeds of philan- 
thropy as Francis d' Assisi ; yet, in the eye of the 
Church of Rome, they have not made the first step 
toward saintship. 

Protestantism has denied, indeed, this extreme 
view, of self-denial and self-mortification. Protes- 
tantism does not assert that the highest religious 
duty is to crucify the natural affections of the heart, 
nor that to indulge them is sinful or irreligious. It 
does not demand that a man or woman, in order to 
be holy and saintly, must withdraw from the world 
and from all social and domestic life. And yet 
Protestantism, as a general thing, has not ventured 



74 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



to assert that religion embraces the natural affec- 
tions of the heart. Though it does not, like Ca- 
tholicism, call them irreligious and make war upon 
them, neither does it call them religious. It has 
regarded them, generally, as a neutral field between 
religion and irreligion ; as a fruitful source of temp- 
tations, idolatries, snares, delusions, and spiritual 
conflicts, — as belonging to "the things of the world," 
good in their places, but transient and perishable, 
and to be watched lest they usurp too great a place, 
and interfere with the claims of religious duty and 
the eternal interests of the soul. But Protestantism 
hardly more than Catholicism has dared to affirm 
that there can be any religion in the life of the 
natural affections themselves ; and Jesus, it is said, 
has shown us by his life how the natural affections 
of the heart for home and kindred and friends are to 
be denied, that one may live the more wholly to God 
and the truth. Even the liberal, learned, and brill- 
iant French biographer of Jesus, Renan, thinks that 
Jesus was in many things an ascetic, — that he 
"preached war against nature," voluntary " poverty " 
and "celibacy," and "total rupture with kin." 

Now, Jesus' own example cannot, I believe, be 
rightly drawn to the support of any ascetic view of 
religion. That certain sayings reported of him, torn 
from their connection and from the general spirit of 
his teaching and practice, are capable of such an 
interpretation, I admit ; and it would be strange if 
he should not have had some tinge of the asceticism 
that belonged to the purest religious sects of his 
time ; but the general moral and religious influence 



THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 75 

of his life and the aggregate weight of his teaching 
are decidedly the other way. On account of his 
freedom from ascetic practices, he was even stigma- 
tized as " a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber," an 
associate with "publicans and sinners." He does 
not appear to have practised self-denial for the mere 
sake of self-denial. He did not preach the abandon- 
ment of home and friends, of earthly goods and 
social ties, as a virtue in itself ; yet he was as ready 
as Francis d' Assisi to make these sacrifices when- 
ever the cause of truth and virtue demanded it. 
The distinction is here : ascetic religion seeks ways 
of self-denial and self-sacrifice for their own sake ; 
true religion accepts self-denial and self-sacrifice 
when self stands in the way of something greater 
than self. Francis of Assisi slept on the bare 
ground, though there were beds all around him, for 
the mere sake of mortifying and deadening the 
body: Jesus "had not where to lay his head," be- 
cause often, under the necessities of his mission, 
persecuted from town to town, the earth and sky were 
the only hospitality offered him. 

Nor is it true that Jesus abandoned all social and 
domestic ties, and denied himself the support of the 
love and sympathy of congenial hearts. It is proba- 
ble that his mission drew him away somewhat from 
his own family and kindred ; for they could not 
understand, more than his old neighbors, the source 
of this strange power that he possessed as a teacher, 
and the misunderstanding became a cause of partial 
alienation. But, though under the exigencies of his 
work, the home was in great measure lost, home joys 



76 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



and ties and affections were not lost. His little 
band of disciples was his family. With them, he 
worked and travelled and lived. And, when his 
human love craved a warmer and more interior 
home, there were three disciples, Peter, James, and 
John, who seemed to form an inner circle within 
this little flock of followers, and to whom his heart 
went out in its deepest intimacies and most earnest 
cravings for sympathy. Nor was he without domes- 
tic shelter and hospitality and love. The house of 
Simon Peter, in the village of Capernaum, became 
his home while in Galilee, where he was cared for 
like an own son. He was a frequent guest at the 
house of Zebedee ; and, occasionally, some of the 
wealthier citizens invited him under their roofs and 
to their tables. There were devoted women, like 
Salome, Joanna, and the faithful Mary Magdalen, 
who followed him, bound by no merely technical 
religious tie, but held by the tie of gratitude and 
love and personal devotion. But the most beautiful 
of all these ties of private affection was that which 
bound him to the family at Bethany, — to Lazarus 
and his sisters. Here seems to have been his home 
during his work in Judea ; and his visits to this 
house, when the burdens of his toilsome service 
appear for a time to have been laid aside, while his 
nature refreshed itself with home affections and 
delights, are like bright oases in the midst of the 
stormy desert of his public life. Here, aside from 
faithful discipleship, was pure and exalted friend- 
ship. Here was not only religious fellowship, but 
love, sympathy, communion of hearts. Here not 



THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS JJ 

only stern duty, but the voice of affection was 
heard ; and Jesus was for the hour transformed 
from the public teacher and religious reformer into 
the cordial companion and, possibly, tender lover. 

In view of intimacies and friendships like these, 
it is a great error to suppose that Jesus lived and 
died in ascetic denial of the claims of the heart. If 
his own example is to be considered as settling the 
question, it is certain that, while he did not allow 
the natural affections of the heart to thwart or 
interfere with the ruling purpose of his career, he 
yet did not sacrifice them, but gave them a large 
and sacred place in the completed temple of his 
religious life. 

Again, Jesus draws some of his sublimest relig- 
ious lessons from these natural human affections. 
How does he illustrate the bond of religious disci- 
pleship but by the terms "brother," "sister," 
"mother"? How does he teach the perfect provi- 
dence of the Infinite Power but by the argument, 
" If ye then know how to give good gifts unto your 
children, shall not your Father in heaven give good 
things to them that ask him ? " How does he de- 
clare the quick, pardoning mercy of Heaven toward 
sinning men and women but by that exquisite por- 
trayal of a human father's forgiving love for a wan- 
dering child in the parable of the Prodigal Son ? 
Where, in fact, did Jesus find the word that best and 
oftenest expressed his conception of the character 
and government of Deity, and is the key to the 
whole edifice of his religious ideas, but in the pa- 
rental relation of the human family ? In short, it is 



78 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



in these intimate human relations, in these home 
affections, sympathies, and services that are often 
considered without the pale of religious duties, or 
even as standing in the way of religious duties, that 
Jesus found the most apt illustrations of the special 
religious truths he had to teach. He took these 
common, inborn affections of the heart that bind the 
human family together, lifted them up, as it were, 
into a higher and purer atmosphere, and showed 
how, both in their origin and in their issue, they 
are a type of our relations to infinite Being and 
infinite providence. Shall we, then, in the face of 
these teachings and habits of Jesus, dare to assert 
on the ground of his example that there is any- 
thing irreligious, or contrary to the spirit of relig- 
ion, in the natural affections of the heart ? " Let 
them alone," says this great teacher of duty: " re- 
strict not the heart, mutilate not its loves, forbid 
not the tender outflow m of its sympathies, even 
though a merely careful prudence cries, ' Why this 
waste ? ' " 

And in human nature itself, in its origin, its 
needs, and its destiny, we find this claim of the 
natural affections justified. These fountains of do- 
mestic and friendly love are in the deepest places of 
our being. They spring up at the very root of our 
natures, among those eternal forces amid which 
our special natures stand, and from which they have 
in some way been educed. They appear in us as 
instincts. They are vital, therefore, with the very 
life of that mysterious energy which is behind and 
anterior to our being, and pulsate with a power that 



THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 79 

comes throbbing from the central purpose and heart 
of the universe itself. These energies of wedded 
and parental love, of fraternal and domestic affec- 
tion, whence come the ties of home and family, are 
so manifestly a pressure from the heart of nature, 
and are so essential to the ascending development of 
her life, that I know not why we may not call them 
the very power of God in the human soul. They 
are put, indeed, somewhat for direction and control 
under reason and conscience, and are amenable to 
the law of justice and general benefit that is the 
basis of social morality ; but to deny them, to re- 
press their divine spontaneity, to smother and anni- 
hilate them, is to sin against the purpose and law 
of universal nature, and might well be defined as 
one form of the transgression which the New Testa- 
ment calls the sin against the Holy Ghost. It is 
the very life of eternal Being, seeking ever some 
higher and more favoring form of manifestation, 
that has organized these natural affections and sym- 
pathies within us. The power of God is in them 
as the very bond of the union. The dying Bunsen 
spoke not in metaphor, but only simple truth, when 
he said to his wife, bending over him, " In thy face, 
I have seen the Eternal." Tread reverently; for 
here is holy ground, here are shrines for daily wor- 
ship. In the pure loves of our hearts for wife, for 
husband, for child, for brother and sister, for father, 
mother, friend, the Infinite One is near us, — ay, 
lives within us. It is eternal love that binds us 
thus together in affectionate mutual service. Hold 
it sacred. Profane it not, deny it not, defile it not. 



8o 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



Kneel at the heart's shrines, and gratefully adore 
and serve. 

This inner circle of affection is needed, too, in 
order that the great outer work of life may be most 
effectually done, — in order that even the universal 
charities and philanthropies may be the better ac- 
complished. There are portions of life which can 
only be developed in this close intimacy of affection, 
— which are too sacred for public participation, — 
which, like some rare and delicate plants, only ap- 
pear under certain conditions of privacy as to shelter 
and temperature. Yet these portions are also nec- 
essary to the completeness of our lives and to the 
full performance of our duties ; and they are neces- 
sary, not merely for their own sake and the rounding 
of the life in that direction, but for the perfect 
rounding of the life in all other directions and the 
complete development and action of all its parts. 
The men who live solely in public, whether it be for 
ends of business, or philanthropy, or political or 
religious service, lose a certain refinement and ten- 
derness of nature and a certain moral and spiritual 
aroma, which are found only in the enclosed and 
sheltered gardens of private affection ; and by as 
much as this loss detracts from the full complete- 
ness of the life, by so much does it detract from its 
strength and usefulness in any public service. We 
touch here, indeed, upon a great general law, — the 
law of culture. There must be a certain amount of 
general culture of our whole being before the best 
fruit of any special faculty can be produced. No 
man is a great statesman who is only a statesman. 



THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 8 1 

No man who is merely a business man has breadth 
enough for the greatest operations in business. A 
man who is so narrow as to be only a mechanician 
is too narrow — he lacks the necessary knowledge — 
for the highest achievements in mechanics ; and the 
man who is only a public philanthropist is not broad 
enough to achieve the grandest successes in philan- 
thropy. In accordance with this same law, the 
culture of the private and domestic affections is 
necessary to the fullest accomplishment of the pub- 
lic service that is required of us. These affections 
enlarge, elevate, and refine the whole nature, and 
better prepare it for its special work in any direc- 
tion. There is no love of universal humanity that 
can take the place of the heart's private loves ; and 
the broadest love of mankind may have a kindlier 
flavor, if it yield its austere demands now and then 
to home affections and delights. The domestic af- 
fections are the inns along the rough highways of 
life, where Duty is refreshed and girds herself anew 
for the severe pilgrimage and stern tasks before her ; 
and as, without seasons of refreshment, the traveller 
must perish in the way, so, without these resting- 
places of the heart, conscience may be overstrained, 
and Duty sink down exhausted in her own severely 
appointed path. The lives that have been spent in 
attempts to show that it is possible to put away all 
earthly love, till the soul, intense with individual 
piety, shall seem a clear flame of spiritual devotion 
ascending to heaven, — these very lives have proved, 
by the fruitlessness of the effort or by some mon- 
strosity in the result, the absolute necessity and 
divineness of earthly love. 



82 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



But not only are the natural claims of the heart 
to be acceded to for the perfect development of our 
present being, but also for the better accomplishment 
of our destiny as beings who may be immortal. I 
would speak of this point with caution, because it 
is a point on which positive knowledge fails us ; and 
we can only draw inferences from premises which 
rest on the basis of the strongest rational probability. 
Not arguing this question now, but assuming that 
some kind of continuance of existence for human 
beings, after these few years of earthly life are over, 
is the more rational alternative, I wish to make and 
emphasize the point that the culture of the personal 
affections is not simply probationary, not merely 
educational in the sense of preparing our natures for 
some great spiritual service in the world hereafter, 
but the affections themselves are immortal : they go 
with us and remain a part of us in the world here- 
after. 

If we are to preserve our personal identity after 
death, I see not how we can come to any other belief 
than this : the heart, with all its real loves, attach- 
ments, and sympathies, — with all its still folded ca- 
pacities, too, — remains with us. It is in this that 
the richest and best parts of our lives have been 
found here. It is this that is deepest in our being, 
this for which more than anything else we crave per- 
sonal continuance. I cannot conceive, therefore, any 
individual human existence hereafter in which the 
personal and social affections are not to fill an impor- 
tant place and contribute in a most important degree 
to the heavenly service and felicity. Nay, I believe 



THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 83 

that these affections must enter much more into our 
lives there than they have ever entered, or can enter, 
into our lives here. I do not picture the future life 
as simply the unimpeded intellectual discovery and 
reverence of truth, however high the dignity and 
large the satisfactions of such a career. I do not 
picture it as only moral adherence to the line of 
divine rectitude, though of necessity including that. 
I do not picture it as merely a higher field for the 
rigid, self-sacrificing services of charity and philan- 
thropy, but as that and more. Least of all do I 
picture it as a continuous discharge of technical 
religious duties, — a monotonous scene of adoration 
and worship, of praises and psalm-singing and shout- 
ings of hosannas around a celestial throne. Nor 
can I accept the more mystical interpretation of this 
latter view, and say with religious stoicism that the 
heavenly life is the rapturous adoration and worship 
of Infinite Being alone, — that it is to live with Him 
in such a way that all other personal relations, all 
other personal longings and regrets, are swallowed 
up and lost in the personal relation to Him. Not 
thus, O friends, do I read man's future. Not thus do 
I read it from his past or from his present, from his 
history or from his capacities and his yearnings. 

We may hope, indeed, in that world of more re- 
fined mentality, to gaze with ardor upon the new 
truth that will be revealed to us ; we may hope to 
walk with fonder obedience the path of rectitude, 
and to live as devoted helpers and lovers of our 
race ; we may hope to know and serve and live in 
more vital connection with the Eternal Power, in 



8 4 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



some higher and larger way than anything our im- 
aginations can now conceive. But the crowning dis- 
tinction and glory of the future world must be, I 
believe, the unfolding, ever more and more, of the 
life of the human heart in its finite personal rela- 
tions; the disclosure, ever more and more, of the 
mysterious depths of the riches, beauty, and power 
of these relations ; the development of our natures 
as persons into ever higher and more determinate, 
yet more complicated and co-related forms, as organ- 
isms of the infinite energy and life. This is nature's 
highway of development, — increasing forms of dif- 
ferentiation, and thereby constant ascent in individ- 
ual intelligence and power, and not reabsorption into 
the original mass of being. I see not how we could 
be nearer to God as a person in the future world than 
we are in this ; for "in him," even now, "we live and 
move and have our being." Indeed, I cannot con- 
ceive of God as a person, — as one whom we can 
approach and have relations with, as we approach and 
have relations with each other. That, to my thought, 
makes him finite. But, if we are to attribute person- 
ality to him at all, he is Person of persons ; or that 
which is the substratum in which finite personalities 
inhere, — the vital power through which they have 
found being and by which they are bound together 
in social relations and ties. And hence I conceive 
that our heaven will be the larger and freer unfolding 
and enriching of our personal being and finite per- 
sonal relations. We shall not be nearer, in any 
literal sense, to God, — we shall never look upon his 
face as the face of a man ; but we shall enclose more 



THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 85 

of his being in our being, and in him we shall draw 
nearer to each other, and look with clearer vision 
into each other's faces, and touch with fonder rapt- 
ure and more blissful communion each other's hearts. 
We shall admire Truth and Goodness and Beauty, — 
the accorded attributes of Infinite Being; but we 
shall admire them mainly, and in ever-increasing 
measure, in their personal manifestations, and as they 
bind us by many a strong and sacred tie in social 
relationships. We shall worship, — less in form, but 
more in substance, — our worship becoming ever 
more and more the living "beauty of holiness," — 
love, fidelity, affectionate, just, and helpful service 
to each other. 

We know not, indeed, how these natural immortal 
affections are to build the heavenly homes and cir- 
cles and societies ; but we know that they are strong 
enough to draw kindred hearts together here, and 
to build up homes, and to hold firmly the friendly 
circle. And so, with perfect assurance, we can trust 
them, in that freer and sincerer life, to rear the 
mansions of eternal love, and to draw into them, and 
into friendly neighborhood, the hearts that really 
belong together. The mere earthly relations may 
fall- away, — they are but educational, preliminary; 
but the ties of the heart, the kinships of the soul, — 
these, if anything, must survive all changes of time 
and death and the grave. 

We do not know all, my friends ; but we know 
enough, — enough to cause us to put the culture of 
the domestic, personal, and social affections among 
the first of religious duties. Starve them not, sup- 



86 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



press them not. Let them grow, and glow, and 
flame their genial warmth into all the cold places of 
life. And let them consume all the secret or toler- 
ated impurities that usurp their sacred name. Guard 
all your true friendships faithfully, sacredly : the 
heart of your friend joins yours, because some por- 
tion of divine power possesses you in common at 
that point. Let your kindly word and deed be felt 
in all your neighborhood and through all your 
friendly circle, — elevating, purifying, enlivening with 
innocent joy. And in your homes, — oh for a tongue 
inspired to speak of the holy affections and obliga- 
tions there ! We have not yet half learned the 
worth of the home. We have not yet learned what 
depths of religion lie beneath the affections on which 
it is based. Not wealth, nor social ambition, nor fash- 
ion should build it; not prudence, nor convenience, 
nor even conscience alone, should build it. But 
love should build it; and love — wise love — should 
reign in it. Let it build it so pure and beautiful 
and sincere that it shall be a foretaste and type of 
the heavenly dwelling. Let it make its realities so 
attractive that no frivolities nor illusions can draw 
son or daughter, husband or wife, into temptation 
elsewhere. Let it fill it so full of pure service, irra- 
diate it with such joy and peace, that no place in all 
the world shall seem so good, so divine. Let love 
— wise love — build it. Though it founds it on the 
earth, it will rear it to the heavens and open it into 
the celestial mansions ; and, though the members of 
the household must one after another depart, they 
may still not be far away : they may have only gone 



THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 87 

to some higher room, where Love, faithful house- 
keeper, shall find them, every one, and preside still 
with patient fidelity over the one family on earth 
and in heaven. 



April 2, 1865. 



VII. 



ENDURANCE. 

"Behold, we count them happy which endure." — Epistle of 
James. 

It is a well-known fact of physics that every re- 
sult in nature is achieved through the operation of 
two sets of forces, — the forces of impulsion and the 
forces of resistance. Or, to speak more precisely, 
physical force manifests itself in two ways, — by 
direct action and by reflex action ; and every move- 
ment, every growth, every evolution in nature, is the 
resultant of this double putting-forth of power. It 
is from the combination of these two exhibitions of 
force, harmoniously balanced, the first of which 
would impel in a direct line through endless space 
and the other bring to speedy rest, that the earth 
describes its symmetrical orbit, returning to it with 
precision every year. And thus, too, it is that all 
the heavenly bodies group themselves in families 
and systems, finding rest in their harmonious rela- 
tions with each other, at the same time that they 
have infinite motion and variety in their endless 
circles. Science even allows us through the infinite 
vista opened by this law of forces to catch a glimpse 
of the process by which chaos first began to divide 
into worlds ; and it is by this same balance of forces 



ENDURANCE 



89 



that all the physical phenomena of the worlds are 
continued. By this, stones get their structure, veg- 
etation is produced, our feet walk the earth, and 
the nail clasps the wood so that our houses stand. 
It is from the impulsion of the wind and the resist- 
ance of the waves that our ships sail the sea ; from 
the friction of the rail and the expansion of steam 
that the locomotive makes the circuit of the globe. 

There is the same double manifestation of force in 
things moral and spiritual, — the force positive and the 
force negative, the force active and the force passive, 
the force direct and the force reflex, the force of 
impulsion and the force of resistance ; and there 
must be the same harmonious combination and bal- 
ance of these two elements, in order to produce 
efficiency and grace of character. There must be 
not only the impulse to do, but the capacity to bear ; 
not only the incentive to move, but the ability to 
stand ; not only the motive to act, but the power 
to endure ; not only the will to say yes, but the will 
to say no ; not only the supple, extended hand with 
ready generosity to offer help, but the firm, arched 
elbow and the knotted muscles prepared to resist 
and defend. These two manifestations of force are 
equally necessary, and in about the same degree, for 
the highest achievements of moral and spiritual char- 
acter. It is, in fact, but one and the same force 
operating in different ways ; and, where there is any 
real, original strength of character, it operates in 
both directions with equal efficiency : it shows itself, 
according to opportunity, both as strength to do and 
as strength to bear. 



go 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



It is of this latter element of character — the 
strength to endure, to bear, to resist, to suffer — that 
I wish to speak this morning. And this needs, 
perhaps, the more to be enforced by speech than 
the other, since, in the very nature of the case, it is 
a more silent and undemonstrative kind of power 
in itself. The strength that is shown in direct and 
positive deeds, the strength to dare and to do, tells 
its own merits and carves its own fame ; while the 
strength that simply endures and resists must of 
necessity remain very much in concealment, and, 
perchance, its achievements never be told to the 
public ear. One acts chiefly in public, but one 
must suffer in solitude. The heroic deed is done 
amid the cheers of crowding bystanders, and is 
lifted to the knowledge of the world upon the breath 
of their huzzas : the heroic suffering may be hidden 
in the sacred privacy of home, in the silence of some 
obscure chamber, or in the still deeper and more 
silent recess of some private heart, which bears a 
grief that no human being knoweth, and whose fame 
is carried only on the breath of that spirit which 
"bloweth where it listeth," but the sound of which 
comes to no human ear. Hence, to the majority of 
men there is more stimulus to do bravely than to 
bear bravely : the heroism of the former is seen and 
applauded, the heroism of the latter may be unrec- 
ognized and unknown. 

Indeed, there are many persons who would at first 
question whether heroism of character can ever be 
shown through the passive qualities of endurance 
and defence. Their idea of the hero is of one who 



ENDURANCE 



91 



goes forth as an aggressor against the evils and ills 
of life ; who does not wait for the hour of defence, 
but averts the need of endurance by boldly advanc- 
ing to annihilate the cause that threatens the neces- 
sity of such a resort. He is one who courts difficul- 
ties and hardships ; who delights in attacking 
wrong ; who seeks obstacles that he may overcome 
them ; who penetrates with a supreme disregard of 
self to the very front of danger, and flings his life 
with Herculean force into the deadly assault, deter- 
mined, if he must die, to demand for the sacrifice 
the utmost possible price. Such a character as this 
is, indeed, admirable. It has our applause and our 
homage. The world will always need such heroes, 
and will gratefully find redemption and progress in 
following their footsteps. But is the whole of hero- 
ism here ? Are there no heroes save in the front 
ranks of battle ? Is it glorious to rush with open 
breast against danger, and not glorious, also, to 
stand in attitude of waiting, defiant composure to 
resist it ? The soldiers who stormed the forts of 
Vicksburg were not braver, nor did they do a more 
valorous deed for their country, than they who stood 
behind the ramparts of Gettysburg to receive un- 
moved the deadly fire, but who were not allowed to 
go out to assault their foes in return. The scout and 
the advance guard are needed ; but so is the soldier 
that defends the citadel in the rear, and to him may 
come as rare opportunities for bravery as to his more 
active brothers in the front. The man that runs up 
to the cannon's mouth, and seizes the flag from the 
hand of his enemy, and carries it in triumph from 



9 2 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



the field, is heroic. So is he that holds the flag se- 
cure against a hostile grasp ; and he, too, who, far 
away from the noise and excitement of the fray, 
unseen perchance by mortal eye, bears with uncom- 
plaining fortitude the pain of a shattered limb or 
the burden of a diseased and helpless body, — he, it 
may be, is the greatest hero of them all. 

Strength of character cannot be measured by 
publicity of deed. There are perilous courses of 
business which seem to invite into them only the 
bravest blood ; there are rare missions of philan- 
thropy in which those who engage must needs have 
peculiar courage ; there are sudden emergencies in 
life which sometimes call into public distinction that 
presence of mind, self-forgetfulness, and daring 
which specially mark the hero. And we are apt to 
think that it is only amid such surroundings that 
heroism can appear. But, perhaps, in your nearest 
neighbor's house you may find heroism just as true 
and triumphant, — in the silent submissiveness with 
which some great trial is borne ; in the patient fidel- 
ity with which some secret, humble duty is per- 
formed ; in the serene, cheerful resignation, telling 
no tale of disappointment and sacrifice, with which 
the heart has taken up some heavy cross, crushing 
its deepest impulses, at the command of conscience. 
Heroism ? You shall find it in the patient, faithful 
life of the woman who has seen joy after joy depart 
from her side ; who has buried the bright hopes of 
her youth ; whose dream-castles filled with luxury 
and indulgence have vanished before the realities 
of hardship, poverty, and neglect ; who pictures no 



ENDURANCE 



93 



longer any high mission or large place for the dis- 
play of her powers ; and who now gives her days 
with consecrated fidelity to some hard, obscure ser- 
vice of affection or of duty, finding the whole of life 
in domestic faithfulness and neighborly charity and 
kindness. Heroism ? You shall find it in the man 
who sacrifices position, friendship, wealth, pleasure, 
and what are commonly regarded as the dearest 
objects of life, that he may live true to some one 
overmastering obligation of principle or of honor 
which the world knows nothing of. Heroism ? 
You shall find it in the high resolve of youth to over- 
come passion, to defy temptation, to bear the ridi- 
cule and scoffing of companions, to struggle with 
unknown difficulties and obstacles, to let go the 
fondest personal desires, in order to keep with honor 
some, private trust or to fulfil some pledge given to 
conscience, or given, perchance, to a mother's 
prayer. Heroism ? You shall find it, perhaps, in 
the humble, scantily clad service-girl you have just 
passed unnoticed in the street, whose thin, poor 
dress covers a heart rich in patient endurance and 
self-forgetfulness, as she goes day after day to her 
wearing, half-paid toil to get the bread that shall 
keep her bedridden, widowed mother and her young 
brothers and sisters from the disgrace of the alms- 
house. No human eye has read her story ; yet, if it 
could be written in a book as Heaven's eye reads it, 
even the world of fashion would read it with admira- 
tion and homage, and count her among its heroines. 
But she, perchance, cannot write ; and so she only 
lives her heroism, and the great world knows noth- 
ing of it. 



94 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



And, if we are to judge character by the standard 
of the world's purest and greatest teachers, which is, 
also, the standard of our own secret hearts, shall we 
not place such examples of brave, silent endurance 
in the common paths of life higher even than the 
great deed of valor that is blazoned round the world ? 
These are never seen of men. Their left hand 
knows not what their right hand does. They are 
encouraged by no applause. They are incited by no 
competition. They only whisper their secret in 
trust to God, and their only reward is the conscious- 
ness of his approval and their own faithfulness. 

Wonderful almost to the miraculous is the power 
of endurance which a single-eyed devotion to duty 
sometimes gives. Even the body, animated by a 
strong and serenely heroic soul, becomes less sensi- 
tive to fatigue and danger, and more able to resist 
privation and disease. I shall never forget an inci- 
dent, in illustration of this truth, that came to my 
knowledge from the career of a private soldier serv- 
ing in the army of the Potomac. In a Pennsylvania 
regiment was a young man who enlisted in March, 
1864. Two months afterward, he was carried to the 
hospital, wounded in three places, one of the wounds 
depriving him of his right eye. In August, he again 
joined his regiment, just before an engagement, in 
which he was again wounded and carried insensible 
from the field. After another two months in the 
hospital, he was again in the field for service, and 
very soon was one of a body of men sent to make a 
demonstration against a rebel fort. Placed on the 
picket line, he was left there, exposed to capture, 



ENDURANCE 



95 



by the sudden withdrawal of the national troops 
without warning. Discovering his perilous position, 
he crept unobserved into a small ravine, hoping to 
make his escape during the night. But, before 
night, a rebel vidette was thrown out a few feet from 
where he lay, so that he could not change his loca- 
tion or even lift his body without being perceived. 
For six days and nights, he remained in the ravine, 
— the enemy's sentinel posted close beside him, — 
exposed to winds and rains and frosts, without food 
or drink, chewing for sustenance the leaves and 
roots that chanced to be in reach of his arm, and 
fearing almost to sleep lest he should attract atten- 
tion by some unconscious movement, but resolved 
not to surrender, though he might have done so 
with perfect personal safety at any moment. On 
the seventh night, the enemy having relaxed vigi- 
lance, he crawled on his hands and knees to our 
lines, bringing with him his musket and all his 
accoutrements. His feet and hands were frost- 
bitten, his stomach had almost lost its functions, and 
one day more of such narrow imprisonment and he 
must have surrendered to death. Yet he seemed 
not to think that he had done anything extraordi- 
nary, or more than any patriotic soldier would have 
done. For myself, I could not help repeating as I 
read the story, — and I believe I made no irreverent 
application of the words, — " He endured hardness as 
a good soldier of Jesus Christ." I do not know that 
he was a " Christian," as that word is commonly 
defined, — I do not know that he made any claims to 
religion, — but he certainly showed a fortitude which 



9 6 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



the highest martyrs and saints of the Church have 
not surpassed ; and, whatever were his sins, — sins 
of weakness he could not have had, — they were 
surely forgiven him, since he was ready to give so 
much to his country. 

But such fortitude, it is said, noble as it is, is yet 
somewhat physical. It is, to a considerable extent, 
a matter of natural temperament. Another person, 
equally patriotic and brave, but of a different phys- 
ical organization, might not have been able to show 
this capacity of endurance. There are worse suffer- 
ings than those of physical pain. There are disap- 
pointments of the heart ; there are bereavements 
of affection ; there are wrongs of neglect, suspi- 
cion, and false accusation ; there are heart agonies 
deeper than any caused by Death's sharp blade. 
And to bear such trials with serenity is a higher 
test of strength than patient submissiveness to 
bodily torture. And here, too, my mind recurs to 
an example in a soldier's life that came under my 
own knowledge. In the " Deserters' Camp" — a 
camp for deserters from our own army — across the 
Potomac, a daily visit to which lay within the rounds 
of my duty during a part of the winter of 1864, I 
noticed, from day to day, a man whose strong, honest 
face, cleanly dress, and general manly appearance 
and bearing indicated a character quite different 
from most of those with whom he was there associ- 
ated. Finally, after a direct question to him, I 
learned his story ; for he never sought me to make 
known his complaints, as did the rest. He was a 
Maine farmer, and had served from the beginning of 



ENDURANCE 



97 



the war. He had fought in most of the battles of 
the Army of the Potomac, and bore then on his per- 
son the scar of a severe wound, proof of his valor at 
Gettysburg. In consequence of this, he had been 
transferred to the Invalid Corps ; and, while going to 
the post to which he was assigned for duty, having 
neglected some technical military regulation, he 
was arrested as a deserter and sent to the military 
prison in Georgetown. Nominally, he was a de- 
serter : really, he was no deserter ; and his case 
could have been righted at once, if the circumstances 
had been known to the proper authorities. But the 
proper authorities could not 'know of every case in 
the Georgetown prison. And so the unfortunate 
man remained there for weeks in a small apartment 
crowded with prisoners, with no opportunity for a 
hearing or prospect of release. This was his reward 
for three years of faithful soldierly service. After a 
while, he was sent with others out to the " Desert- 
ers' Camp," there to be kept for weeks longer with 
the worst class of soldiers and the vilest of men. 
It was nearly three months from his arrest before 
his release came. Yet, when he related the affair 
to me, and told of the hardships he had suffered in 
prison, and of the difficulty of getting his case 
brought to trial, and of the worse hardship of being 
charged with desertion from an army which he had 
been proud to fight with for three years and from 
a cause which he would give his life willingly for 
rather than it should fail ; and, though his eyes 
moistened when he said that his worst fear had been 
that he might die there, and his name then always 



9 8 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



stand on the war records with that stigma of coward- 
ice or treason against it, — yet he showed no resent- 
ment and no bitterness, but, in the consciousness of 
his own fidelity, was lifted above all passion, and was 
as composed as if he had been promoted instead of 
being imprisoned. He knew, he said, it was all a 
mistake, no one meant to wrong him ; arid then he 
added, with a brave philosophy, " It matters not how 
much the United States government may punish 
me, or what charges they may bring against me, 
they can never make a traitor of me ; and, when they 
release me, I shall fight for them again all the 
same." 

But does such fortitude as this seem too stoical, 
too coldly philosophical, to reach the religious stand- 
ard ? Does it have too little of the joy of sacrifice, 
too little of spiritual consolation and hope ? Go 
with me, then, again to another scene, and see this 
silent heroism of endurance transfigured as if with 
the very light of the opening heavens. See a man 
lying in a hospital, worn with wounds, marches, and 
disease, nearing every day his death and knowing 
that death is already looking him in the face ; see 
him there surrounded by no comforts, only with the 
rudest necessities of the sick-room, far away from 
home and friends, the fresh soldier hope, that pict- 
ured heroic adventure and romance and feats of 
brilliant contest and victory, turned into this pallor 
and feebleness, this emaciation and wasting corrup- 
tion of disease, — see him there, simply suffering, 
enduring, and waiting to die ; see death end the 
scene in peace, and his wasted body carried forth in 



ENDURANCE 



99 



its rude coffin to the soldier's burial, — and then turn 
back and read these verses on which the ink from 
his pen is still fresh : * — 

" I lay me down to sleep, 

With little thought or care 
Whether my waking find 
Me here or There ! 

" A bowing, burdened head, 
That only asks to rest 
Unquestioning upon 
A loving breast. 



" My good right hand forgets 
Its cunning now ; 
To march the weary march 
I know not how. 

" I am not eager, bold, 

Nor strong. All that is past. 
I am ready not to do, 
At last, at last. 

" My half-day's work is done, 
And this is all my part : 
I give a patient God 
My patient heart, 

" And grasp his banner still, 
Though all its blue be dim ; 
These stripes, no less than stars, 
Lead after Him." 



*This incident and the verses were found in William H. Reed's Hospital Life, 
then just published. The impression there given is that the verses were composed 
by the soldier just before his death. But the soldier may have only copied them; 
yet, though since published anonymously in many places, I am not aware that they 
have been claimed for any other author. 



100 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



What one of the saints ever left a more exquisite 
memorial of trust, submissiveness, and peace ! Here 
the deepest springs of life have been touched, and 
the eternal waters flow. If the imprisoned soldier, 
in his power to bear suffering and wrong, gave us 
only the type of a sublime stoicism, this dying sol- 
dier certainly, in the sweetness of his submission, 
shows us as fair a type as was ever claimed for 
Christian saintliness. 

But do I seem to mock you, friends, with these 
examples of character drawn from scenes far off and 
from opportunities now happily past ? Come with 
me, then, nearer home. Enter a dwelling in this 
city, which some in this congregation have entered 
many a time ; and there may be some here who 
know well of what I am about to speak, but to most 
it is all unknown. Go into the servants' apartment 
of that house. There, a few months ago, you might 
have seen, in the person of a serving colored woman, 
an example of patient, heroic suffering, in which the 
very strength and tranquillity of heaven seemed so 
to mingle that an influence went out of her chamber, 
pervading the whole house and blessing all who saw 
her. She who had only engaged to serve with her 
physical strength for wages became at last the gra- 
tuitous teacher of the highest moral and spiritual 
truths ; and, when her faithful hands failed in their 
office, she served even more truly than before, bring- 
ing gifts to her patrons on the wings of her spirit 
from the very gates of Paradise. And when, after 
months of pain thus bravely and cheerfully borne, it 
became expedient to try the last hope of recovery, 



ENDURANCE 



101 



and she went to the Massachusetts General Hospital 
to submit to a critical surgical operation, she showed 
there a fortitude and composure so extraordinary as 
to become a tradition of the place. So far from 
needing comfort, she seemed herself to be the sus- 
tainer and comforter. Virtue went out from her, to 
strengthen those around her better to do and to bear. 
They who went to wait upon her wants came away 
feeling that they had received more than they could 
give. Attendants, patients, surgeons, were awed by 
her marvellous strength, as if a supernatural pres- 
ence were with her; and this humble serving-woman 
became the Christ-like teacher of professors and 
learned physicians, of men and women far above her 
in culture and social rank, and of all the humble, 
suffering poor, lying on their weary beds around. 
She died. But the power that went out from such a 
life, the beautiful, beatific influence of such virtue, 
can never die. It stays still upon the earth to help 
us be strong and to mould new life into its likeness. 

These examples, then, of the strength and grace 
that may come to character from the simple quality 
of endurance are not far away ; nor are the occasions 
past. Is there any person here whose position is 
lowlier, whose name obscurer, than the name and lot 
of those from whom these illustrations are drawn ? 
And is there any here whose position is so high, or 
so well guarded by wealth and culture and all the 
facilities of external ease and comfort, that suffering 
and sorrow, infirmity and loss, cannot reach it ? 
Such examples are all around us. No one of us is 
beyond the opportunities which call for this virtue 



102 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



We admire it always in others : let us secure the 
possession of it for ourselves. Who of us does not 
love gentle Charles Lamb the more for his patient, 
long burdened, but unbroken and unmurmuring sub- 
missiveness to that fearful calamity which darkened 
his house, and for the heroic sacrifices he made 
because of it, all unknown at the time, to one tender 
obligation ? I pray we may not be led away by any 
arguments for the rightfulness and sanctity of all 
natural human impulses into a philosophy of self- 
gratification and self-indulgence. I also would pro- 
claim the purity and sanctity of all affections and 
sentiments that are genuinely natural to humanity. 
But, among these affections and sentiments, I find 
one which does pre-eminent homage to the virtue 
of self-denial and self-renunciation. I also would 
preach the doctrine of self-development as contain- 
ing the fundamental principle of religious growth 
and progress. But I see that the way to self-devel- 
opment is often the way of the cross, and that the 
character that is perfected to the highest grace and 
beauty is most frequently moulded by suffering and 
sacrifice. In this aspect of things, the lot that 
seems hardest may be most blessed. There is no 
lot so hard, no dwelling so humble nor so afflicted, 
but that heaven lies next to it ; and brave endurance 
no less than brave doing carries the key that will 
open the door to the highest of heaven's joys. 



September 30, 1866. 



VIII. 



CHILDHOOD'S INSTINCT AND MAN- 
HOOD'S FAITH. 

" Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as 
little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — 
Matt, xviii., 3. 

Thus did Jesus rebuke the petty jealousies and 
ambitions of his disciples. Holding a little child 
before them, he contrasted their selfish strivings 
and vanity with its guileless unconsciousness of 
self ; their anxiety about future emoluments and 
honors with its fulness of joy in its present life ; 
their coldly scheming prudence and niggardliness 
of affection with its generous, instinctive trust and 
outgushing, uncalculating love. And, from this and 
one or two similar sayings of Jesus, it has come to 
be a common Christian inculcation that, to be re- 
ligious, one must become like a little child. But, 
often as this sentiment is repeated, I apprehend 
there is a very vague understanding of what it is to 
become as a child in spiritual things. Paul said that 
when he became a man he put away childish things. 
And this is felt to be quite as important a truth as 
the saying of Jesus, and more in accord with the 
natural facts of individual progress. Yet the heart 



104 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



of Christendom has doubtless been right in holding 
on to this precept of Jesus as containing an illustra- 
tion of some fine religious truth, though the under- 
standing of Christendom may not always have 
rightly interpreted the illustration. He whose eye 
was quick to detect in the lilies and the clouds, in 
the sparrow and the grass, a religious lesson, saw in 
the simple spontaneous life of childhood a natural 
revelation of the truth he wished to teach concern- 
ing the spiritual faith of manhood. Perhaps it was 
only the simple spontaneity and docility of the early 
childhood nature that impressed him. But the com- 
parison suggests a more interior analogy ; and it is 
not impossible that it was to this that his thought 
penetrated, — an analogy between the trusting in- 
stinctive confidence of childhood and the serene 
faith and repose of true manhood. At least, it is to 
the development of this thought that I ask more 
specially your attention in this discourse, — The 
Analogy between Childhood's Instinct and Manhood 's 
Faith. 

The true point of the analogy lies deeper, I be- 
lieve, than we ordinarily fathom. Indeed, as the 
comparison is commonly drawn, it is in many re- 
spects false. It is superficial, and contains more 
sentiment than sound common sense. We observe, 
with something of envy, the freshness, the simplic- 
ity, the unartificial ways, the joyous innocence of 
children; and the wish often utters itself, — "Oh 
that we could have our blotted, tattered natures 
given back to us in their infantile purity again ! " 
The wish, of course, is all in vain ; but, for other rea- 



childhood's instinct, manhood's faith 105 

sons, it is also irrational. It is but the old lamen- 
tation that ever puts the golden age in the past, — 
the crying for vanished pleasures when nobler are 
in hand or within reach. A man can no more 
return to the moral stature of his infancy than he 
can to the intellectual or the physical. He cannot 
have childhood's innocence again ; but he can have 
something higher, — manly integrity and strength, 
matured nobleness and power. Every stage of life 
has its appropriate virtues and graces ; and, while 
purity and kindness belong alike to all ages, ma- 
turity can no more put on those graces that are the 
peculiar charm of childhood than we can wear in 
adult years the clothes we wore as boys and girls. 
Besides, there is, I think we must confess, a good 
deal of romance in our talk of the children's inno- 
cence and happiness. They are innocent, Heaven 
be thanked, of our artificial, hollow ways of life. 
They speak their hearts right out, and with one 
true, keen word often prick the wind out of many 
a family sham. They have not yet learned to hold 
their tongues to silent lies, nor politely to speak the 
thing they know is false. Go back far enough, and 
we shall find innocence, it is true ; but who shall 
say, when or how early it is lost ? The moral nature 
seems to dawn simultaneously with the intellectual. 
And, with the unfolding of the moral nature, the 
dark side comes to the surface no less than the 
bright. The infant in arms displays anger and dis-. 
obedience. The boy of four does wilful mischief, 
and attempts, perhaps, deceit. I was once present 
at the " christening " of a three-years-old child, from 



106 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

whom, just at the moment when the clergyman 
read, " For of such is the kingdom of heaven," 
there burst a violent ebullition of temper not com 
monly associated with that kingdom. These first 
manifestations of childish wilfulness and error may 
indeed be slight, — mere peccadilloes, which with 
wisdom may be controlled ; but, none the less, they 
are not virtues that manhood needs to sigh for. 

And there is often greater disorder, bringing pos- 
itive and perilous wrong and unhappiness, — disordei 
that is inherited parentally, tendencies to vice born 
in the blood. As physical peculiarities, features, 
personal defects, are transmitted through long series 
of generations, so men and women of ages past — 
not more Adam than many a greater sinner since, 
nay, men and women living now — have sown the 
seeds of crimes which generations yet unborn shall 
reap. Your most pet and private weaknesses, se- 
crets you think in your breast alone, may stand 
revealed upon your children, to publish your faults 
years after you are dead. They, indeed, the little 
ones, poor sufferers though they are, are innocent 
of it all ; for we know not how many generations of 
sinning men and women have sent down the poison 
of their vices into these little frames. But inno- 
cence here is not purity, is not happiness. Though 
the accountability be in the past, the disorder is 
none the less real and present. We may give it 
a sweet name, but the thing is none the less foul. 
Such childish innocence may move our pity, but 
hardly our envy; and, though we may not adopt the 
hideous blasphemy of " total depravity," — of man- 



childhood's instinct, manhood's faith 107 

kind born desperately wicked and fit only for eter- 
nal perdition, — we may also avoid the deluded 
sentimentalism that talks of the moral graces of 
the cradle. The germs are there in the cradles, — 
germs of almost infinite moral possibilities ; and 
even the germs by their tenderness and pliancy are 
adapted to appeal to all that is purest in our natures, 
and to put to shame that actual depravity into 
which the habits of our years may have hardened, 
by reminding us of what might have been. Yet, 
though infancy be thus lovely in its bud of possibili- 
ties, there must be germination and growth before 
the beauty of moral and spiritual life can appear. 
Such life is not born : it is character developing 
under the pressure of experience and of moral and 
social obligations. And, even if childish innocence 
were always inborn purity and joyousness, — as 
often, indeed, it is, even the flesh, as Emerson said, 
being "angels' flesh, all alive," — yet it cannot pre- 
sent the moral stature which must be manhood's 
standard. No integrity is sure which has not met 
the seductions of avarice and ambition, and stood 
unmoved against them. There is no real chastity 
before the passions tempt ; no temperance and sim- 
plicity which have not proved their ability to exist in 
spite of worldly wickedness. Childish innocence may 
be lovely and fragrant, but it is only the blossom. 
Manly virtue is the matured, life-sustaining fruit. 
And ripened grain can as well go back to the time 
of bloom, or the scarred and weather-beaten soldier 
leave unused his hard-earned victories and content 
himself again with the paper cap, wooden sword, 



108 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

and mimic battle-fields of his boyhood, as that the 
natural development of character can be reversed 
and manhood's virtue return to childhood's in- 
nocence. 

Look, again, at another phase of childhood, — that 
alleged unconsciousness of self, which gives to the 
child its most exquisite charm, and for which, bur- 
dened with that intense self -consciousness they would 
be gladly rid of, men and women are so apt to long. 
Examining more closely, we shall see that this un- 
consciousness of self is only apparent. By physi- 
ological and psychological law, early childhood is 
really and necessarily confined to a circle of selfish 
aims. The life at first is wholly so, consisting of 
sensations and instinctive efforts that go only to 
self-nourishment and self-protection ; and for several 
years self predominates. Feeling, thought, play, — all 
aim at self-advantage. Life is somewhat advanced 
before the humanities and charities appear. Nature's 
first object is to develop and guard the new individu- 
ality that has been born, and that afterwards is to be 
a voluntary instrument of her aims. The appear- 
ance of unconsciousness in childhood, if the paradox 
may be pardoned, comes from the fact that young 
children are conscious of so little but themselves ; 
that is, they have not yet distinctly separated self 
from their environment, and so have not gained a 
distinct and well-defined individual existence. As 
this separation goes on under the experience of life, 
self-consciousness, indeed, for a time becomes more 
intense, though always diminishing its proportion to 
the whole momentum of life, till, by and by, self and 



childhood's instinct, manhood's faith 109 

the external universe come to be seen in their true 
relations. It is evident, therefore, that that forget- 
fulness of self which manhood yearns for and tends 
toward is not the unconsciousness of the child, who 
seems lost to self only because lost in his own joys; 
but the man, having discovered his relations to other 
beings and things, is to find his satisfaction largely 
in forgetting self in others' joys. And so self-denial, 
self-sacrifice, comes in, — the finding of life through 
losing it, — which is the very extreme of character- 
development from the first stage of childhood, and 
the highest reach of ethical life on earth. 

Not, then, in the external condition or external 
graces of childhood do we find the point of the 
analogy which we seek. We are to become as little 
children in some other way than by trying to deck 
ourselves in the children's virtues. For, however 
beautiful these are in their time and upon the chil- 
dren, yet true manhood and womanhood have virtues 
all their own, and quite as noble. We must strike 
deeper into childhood, into its very constitution and 
essential relations, if we would find the analogy of 
the text justified. 

Looking, then, at the very beginning of human 
life, what are its earliest phases ? What is the essen- 
tial, peculiar nature of childhood ? We shall find the 
most distinguishing feature of infancy, whether we 
look at the subject metaphysically or as a simple 
matter of fact, to be instinctive trust in and reliance 
upon what is, with no questioning of its reality or of 
its ample capacity and purpose to meet all wants. 
The infantile life is divided between sensations and 



no 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



instincts. Through the instincts, it is connected with 
the external world ; but only through its sensations 
are these instincts made known in the child's con- 
sciousness. The instincts and sensations are one to 
him. The infant, therefore, at first makes no sepa- 
ration between self and the external world. He is a 
perfect idealist. He knows of no world that is not 
found in his own consciousness. His wants are all 
supplied by some unerring power working through 
himself, and he is not conscious at first that this 
power is at all external to himself. The demand 
seems to bring the supply. His faculties of thought 
and of voluntary will-power all sleep as yet in 
embryo, and therefore in harmony. He has found, 
as yet, no contradiction as a gulf of separation be- 
tween himself and outward things. He lies in the 
great lap of nature, peaceful, bound to her by the 
delicate but strong tie of woman's tenderness ; in 
harmony as yet with the world into which he has 
come, and living on a mother's care and love in abso- 
lute, instinctive trust. And here in this perfect 
trust, this repose upon the power which has borne 
and still nourishes it, is the distinguishing feature 
of earliest childhood. We may call it a state of 
instinctive, undeveloped unity with nature and its 
laws. 

Now, it is something corresponding to this in- 
stinctive trust of earliest childhood that manhood 
needs, — not just that, but something like it; and it 
remains to say what this corresponding condition of 
manhood is and how it comes. 

This stage of implicit childish trust is very brief. 



childhood's instinct, manhood's FAITH III 

Indeed, no sooner does individual life begin its de- 
velopment than a separation begins between indi- 
vidual consciousness and the external world. The 
beginning of such a separation marks the genesis of 
personal life. The child's instinctive desires are 
thwarted ; and so the sense of a separate existence 
and of conflicting aims is born, and nature's conative 
energy, which has been acting through instinct, 
begins to shape itself into personal volition. Men- 
tal perception awakes through the same cause ; and 
by and by, through this new avenue, in gradual 
sequence, the external world, both of persons and 
things, is revealed. Other instincts also come in 
due order with the years, — tumultuous passions, 
appetites, ambitions, and all the practical desires and 
energies of the period of youth and of opening man- 
hood. But not these alone : a higher world of 
thought and virtue also comes to light. It flashes 
in upon the soul through perceptions of truth, 
goodness, beauty ; and conscience awakes to stand 
as sentinel at the opening ways of life, to declare the 
sovereignty of these higher ideas and aspirations 
over the self-seeking passions and ambitions. Thus, 
the human being becomes gradually equipped for all 
life's offices and work. And, through all these 
phases of development, the separation between self 
and the external world has become more distinctly 
marked. The object, indeed, at every step has been 
to develop a stronger and more powerful personality, 
— out of the vague and chaotic conditions of infan- 
tile existence to bring forth a concentrated, compact, 
sinewy individual organism which should be a 



112 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



new centre of beneficent activity and power in the 
universe. To this end, the struggles and conflicts, 
and all the fiery trials and baptisms of this earthly 
life, if rightly met, have been made subservient. 
The force and pressure of outward circumstances, 
the inevitable laws of nature, the infinite energies 
that both command and restrain the finite, have 
furnished the resisting medium which has solicited 
the efforts and developed the intelligent power and 
freedom of the individual soul. 

But by and by, in natural sequence, there comes 
another stage in this process of life-development. 
The individuality, the selfhood, is established. 
The faculty and power of a free, self-centred person- 
ality are achieved. The man is ready, and stands 
in full armor prepared for the work of life. The 
question comes, What shall he do ? Here, on one 
side, are the passions, the appetites, the ambitions, 
urgent and tumultuous, and all the self-sustaining 
and self-aggrandizing motives still actively pushing 
their claims. Shall this personal faculty, power, and 
freedom that have been achieved be put to the 
service of such masters ? Shall self-aggrandizement 
and self-enjoyment be continued as the object of 
human life ? Nay, that ideal of a higher, nobler 
life, which has been forming within the conscious- 
ness, starts up in protest and forbids such a con- 
summation. Not for this has nature been intent on 
producing this new and wonderful organism of the 
human personality. Itself offspring of and in some 
way still vitally connected with Eternal Being, it 
must own allegiance to the law and purposes of this 



childhood's instinct, manhood's faith 113 

ancestral power, and live for them rather than for 
any transient objects and pleasures of its own. Not 
self-preservation, but the welfare of that which is 
infinitely greater than self, is the imperative com- 
mand that is laid upon the human soul by the moral 
instinct. .Hence, as man stands equipped for ser- 
vice at the opening ways of life, he is conscious of 
an obligation, above all others, to serve high objects 
of truth, right, and goodness ; to exercise his power 
of personal sovereignty on the side of justice, integ- 
rity, beneficence ; to so live that his life shall tell 
for all that is healthful, helpful, and beautiful in the 
manifold relations of human society, and be a per- 
petually nourishing factor in the commonwealth of 
mankind. The birth-time of this obligation is the 
genuine awakening of the religious consciousness. 
It is the hour for consecration, which is youth's 
natural act. This may not come, however, at a defi- 
nitely marked moment. It may advance by gradual 
increase of inward enlightenment, like the dawn of 
the morning. But it is a period which at some time, 
in some way, comes to every normally progressing 
soul. And whoever obediently follows this higher 
law of life becomes one of that happy company of 
souls who help to make a heaven on earth. Of such, 
in very truth, is the kingdom of heaven. They 
enter that kingdom not so much because heirs of its 
possessions as because ministers in its service. 

And to this service, in behalf of the eternal laws 
and purposes faithfully followed, there comes finally, 
as its natural fruit and consummation, a state of 
mental confidence and repose corresponding to that 



114 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



implicit, instinctive trust which marks the earliest 
phases of childhood. This daily intimacy with and 
service of these divine laws beget reliance upon 
them. We come to rest in their embrace with the 
same unquestioning assurance which the child has 
in its mother's arms. As we lay then, ourselves 
helpless among forces that might in a moment have 
quenched our existence, yet secure against all hos- 
tility by the tie of motherhood, so we come to find 
a security as strong and as beneficent in the moral 
order of the universe. We lie restful in the lap of 
the infinite Bounty ; and though hostile storms 
may beat round us, and our hopes and endeavors 
may be shattered, and our joys may lie stricken at 
our feet, nevertheless we are at peace ; for, like the 
child, we then trust where we cannot see, and we 
still confide in the universal Bounty, arranged for the 
best welfare of all, though it deny this moment our 
special wish. Thus, at last, we find rest again, — 
rest even in the midst of life's struggles and con- 
flicts, and solace for its woes. We return to that 
harmony with nature which was the first stage of 
our earthly existence, when there was no conscious 
separation between self and the not-self, and our 
very instincts were the direct impress of the divine 
energy. Only, that was an undeveloped, uncon- 
scious unity without personal character ; while this 
is a developed and conscious unity, produced through 
the very organism of personal character, — the indi- 
vidual voluntarily accepting, trusting, and serving 
the Universal. In the place of instinct there is 
now moral intelligence and faith. The blind im- 



childhood's instinct, manhood's faith 115 

pulse of nature has blossomed into conscious voli- 
tion ; and what the child's instinct was as pledge of 
unquestioned security on its mother's bosom, that is 
manhood's perfect faith in the moral security of the 
world and in the rational acceptance of the facts 
and forces of the universe ; or, to use the religious 
words, in Providence, in God. 

And as, at first, the child makes no separation 
between himself and the external world, but finds 
himself led to the supplies for all his wants by some 
power working in and through his own desires, so 
the man or woman to whom this lofty mental and 
moral faith has come can no longer draw any line of 
demarcation between the human and the divine in 
the life of the soul. The idea of Deity as a distant, 
awe-enthroned sovereignty in the heavens has for 
them vanished. They know of no gulf of estrange- 
ment between God and man. In him, they live and 
move and have their being, and he in them. Their 
very prayers are the pulsings of his life in their con- 
sciousness ; and the answer to them comes in a still 
loftier purpose and a larger measure of divine life in 
their own characters and acts. He worketh hitherto, 
and they work in and through his power. And when 
their action comes to the limit of human capacity, 
and their vision fails to fathom the inscrutable forces 
amid which they must needs live, they yet rest 
serenely on the all-controlling law of righteousness 
that is over all, and through all, and in us all. 

January 27, 1867. 



IX. 



PURE RELIGION. 



" Pure religion, and undefiled before God, the Father, is this,, 
to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep 
one's self unspotted from the world." — Epistle of James. 

Such is the definition of religion given by the 
Apostle James, brother of Jesus, first bishop of Jeru- 
salem, head of the apostolic succession, and, after 
Jesus, official head of the Christian Church. And 
yet, notwithstanding this weight of official authority, 
this definition has generally been considered a very 
loose and heretical one in Christendom from an early 
date down to the present day. The Roman Catho- 
lic Church never did, and does not to-day, accept 
this as a sufficient statement of what religion is. It 
excommunicates, and in times past has tried literally 
to exterminate, persons whose belief concerning re- 
ligion rests simply with this definition of the Apostle 
James. The Roman Catholic Church believes in 
works, in good works ; and great credit is to be 
given to that Church for the various works of mercy 
and institutions of charity, which, both in its corpo- 
rate capacity and through its individual members, it 
has inaugurated and cherished. But these are not 
what it specially calls religious works, and still less 
are they synonymous with its definition of religion. 



PURE RELIGION 



117 



In its view, "to fast" on certain prescribed days is 
a more specific religious service than to give bread 
to the hungry; to crawl up the "sacred stairs" at 
Rome on one's hands and knees a more religious act 
than to help the lame or the inebriate to walk on 
their feet ; to make a pilgrimage of devotion to 
some holy shrine a better evidence of piety than to 
make a pilgrimage anywhere for the relief of suf- 
fering humanity. And to none of these works does 
it allow any religious merit without faith in the 
creed and traditions of the Holy Catholic Church. 

And Protestantism, as a general rule, still more 
than Catholicism has departed from the Apostle 
James' definition of pure religion, and declared it 
heretical. Luther did not hesitate to say that the 
Epistle of James was an "epistle of straw," and to 
doubt its genuineness because it did not contain 
his doctrine of "justification by faith." None of the 
large, predominating sects of Protestant Christen- 
dom has ever thought James' definition of religion 
to be sufficient and sound. Most of them have said, 
" It isn't religion at all : it's mere morality ; it's a 
snare to the soul rather than any security." Within 
the past year, I heard a learned doctor of divinity 
in a neighboring city declare from his pulpit that 
the merely moral men, those who are upright, pure, 
benevolent, full of kindness and good works, but 
who stop there, and make no doctrinal confession of 
religion, — that is, those who live precisely according 
to St. James' definition, — are a greater hindrance to 
Christianity, and do more harm to the world by their 
example, than do the openly wicked and criminal 



Il8 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

classes of society. And there are comparatively few 
Christian churches to-day that would be satisfied to 
admit new members to their fellowship on the sim- 
ple statement of the Apostle James as an adequate 
conception of religious duty and covenant of belief. 
And the churches that would do this are commonly 
denied the Christian fellowship by the greater part 
of Christendom. 

Now, which is right in this matter, the Apostle 
James or the prevailing sects and history of Chris- 
tendom, — the first Christian bishop or all the 
bishops, popes, priests, and the great body of the 
Christian clergy and people since ? The weight of 
authority numerically is certainly against the first 
bishop. But, then, it is also a Christian tradition 
that the opinion of a single original apostle must 
outweigh any number of later authorities ; that the 
quality of a witness is here of more account than num- 
bers. And so there seems to be but one course 
open to those who hold to the view of the majority 
of Christendom in this matter ; and that is the 
course taken by Luther, — namely, to discredit the 
quality of the witness by questioning the apostolic 
genuineness of his testimony. 

But this question is of comparatively little im- 
portance to us here, where we are accustomed to 
consider not so much who made this or that declara- 
tion as what was declared. Possibly, the Apostle 
James did not make this definition of religion ; — 
though, from what we know of him through other 
channels, there seems to be no reason why he should 
not have made it. Yet, possibly, he did not. Possi- 



PURE RELIGION 



II 9 



bly, Luther and others were right in denying the 
apostolic origin of the Epistle. Still, the vastly 
more important question remains, Is this definition 
of religion true ? Is it complete ? Is it sufficient ? 
And this is the question to which our attention is 
specially called. 

It must be admitted that the definition is some- 
what lax in its terms. To those, especially, who are 
accustomed to the ordinary forms of church cove- 
nants, it must seem very latitudinarian. It does not 
require any confession of belief whatever, says 
nothing of belief in Christ or even in God : it speaks 
only of something to be done. It defines what " God, 
the Father," will accept as religion ; but, among the 
things required, even belief in his existence is not 
named. If this definition is to be accepted, religious 
fellowship does not stop at Christian limits, much 
less at the boundaries that separate one Christian 
sect from another. The definition includes in its 
limits the devout, moral, and benevolent non-Chris- 
tian people of the world no less than the same 
class of people in Christendom. It includes Epic- 
tetus and Socrates and Antonine no less than Paul 
and Augustine and Bernard, and would entitle the 
former saints as readily as the latter. It compre- 
hends the true and good in all religions ; presents 
the same test to the disciples of Christ and to the 
disciples of Buddha, and draws, without reference to 
any dividing lines of belief or forms of worship, all 
loving and truth-living souls into one religious 
fellowship. It says alike to Christians, to Moham- 
medans, to Jews, to Buddhists, "It is not anything 



120 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



which gives these distinctive names that makes 
religion." You may be called Christian or Jew or 
Mohammedan or a disciple of Buddha, and yet not 
have a particle of religion. There may be a vast deal 
of difference in the respective merits of the religious 
systems which these names represent, yet it is not 
adherence to one name rather than another that 
gives you a right to be called a religious person. 
Religion is deeper and older than all these systems, 
— something below them all and more comprehen- 
sive than any of them. Find that, and the particu- 
lar religious name by which you shall be called is of 
little importance. Fail to find that, and the religious 
name by which you are known has no efficacy, 
though it be in itself the highest and best. 

Thus broad and comprehensive is this definition 
of religion made by the Apostle James : so lax in 
respect to doctrine that theological belief is not once 
hinted at ; so loose on the matter of a special reve- 
lation and of one chosen people of God that Paul 
and Socrates may be equally included in its terms, 
and may stand together as fellow-servants of God 
and fellow-members of one Church. 

But it is said that the definition is also unphilo- 
sophical, — that not only is it lax, judged by the com- 
mon standard of Christendom, but that it is incom- 
plete, insufficient, as a statement of the religious 
aspects of human nature, aside from any peculiar 
Christian beliefs or claims. It does not cover, it 
has been complained, all the spiritual facts, expe- 
riences, and relations to which, in the development 
of the human mind, the name of religion has been 



PURE RELIGION 



121 



given. It says nothing of the religious sentiment 
per se> only of the moral and benevolent sentiment. 
One might, it is said, do all that this definition re- 
quires on the principle of seeking the greatest hap- 
piness for one's self, with no purely religious emotion 
or aspiration, with no prayer or belief in prayer, with 
no recognition even of God or belief in a God, with 
no element whatever in his conduct springing dis 
tinctively from the religious sentiment ; and yet, 
according to the terms of the definition, he must be 
called religious. If he be only kind and just and 
virtuous, no matter from what motive, and even 
though he deny the very existence of God and de- 
clare religion to be nothing but a mass of supersti- 
tion, this definition would nevertheless call him a 
religious man. The definition, therefore, it is argued, 
is insufficient, absurd. It is a definition, not of re 
ligion, but of morality. 

And, if we were to consider the subject from a 
purely metaphysical stand-point, which was not the 
custom of the New Testament writers, it might be 
admitted that there is some justice in this criticism. 
As a strict philosophical statement, this definition 
may be faulty. To give it literal and logical com 
pleteness, it should include the expressed recogni 
tion of universal or divine law as the source of the 
conduct it commends. Making a free interpreta- 
tion, it might be said, perhaps, that this recognition 
passes over from the first part of the sentence to the 
definition itself. But for all practical purposes, 
which were the only purposes had in view by the 
writer, the definition is complete enough as it stands. 



122 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



And I am ready even to go farther than this, and to 
say, so inseparable are true religion and true moral- 
ity, that whoever lives according to this definition, 
even though it be strictly speaking only a defini- 
tion of morality, will yet live, in the best sense, a 
religious life, and will have a religious nature. The 
morality, if any will have it so, of the life will dis- 
close the religiousness of the nature. I do not 
believe it is possible for a person to live consistently 
and thoroughly by this rule on the selfish principle 
that from such virtue the greatest happiness will 
accrue to his own life. No mere externally pre- 
scribed code of conduct for producing self-satisfac- 
tion, even though that satisfaction were of a moral 
order, could generate the spirit of the acts which 
this definition describes ; and it is the spirit which 
determines the real quality and efficiency of deeds. 
Two persons may perform what is outwardly the 
same deed of kindness, — may be equally generous 
of money, or time, or labor for some object of charity, 
may do literally what the text speaks of, visit and 
help the afflicted with equal assiduity; yet, if one 
goes and does only from a sense of duty, especially 
if he undertakes the part of benevolence looking to 
a reward coming to himself, while the other does 
the same things, but in the spirit of a heartfelt love 
and sympathy which cannot help doing them, what a 
world-wide difference between the quality of their 
acts ! And how quickly is that difference detected 
by the persons who are the objects of them ! Who 
cannot tell, with regard to an act outwardly kind 
done toward himself, whether real kindness of feel- 



PURE RELIGION 



123 



ing was at the bottom of it or whether only con- 
science or custom or still other motive was the pro- 
ducing cause ? The very brute knows whether the 
hand that feeds it has love behind it or not. Much 
more does man know the spirit of the deed that suc- 
cors him. And, in considering this definition of 
religion, it is rightly to be assumed that the conduct 
described has its origin in the highest possible 
motive ; that it is real, inward benevolence and in- 
tegrity and purity. And, this being the assumption, 
I am ready to say that no person can live thoroughly 
and consistently according to the spirit of this rule, 
whatever his lips may profess of belief or other lips 
may assert of his non-belief, without being religious 
in his heart. 

For what are the essential elements in this defini 
tion of religion ? They are plain and easily stated. 
First, is good will, benevolence, sympathy, charity, 
love. The definition says, "To visit the widows and 
fatherless in their affliction," — putting, for greatei 
practical effect, an illustration or single specimen of 
the principle in place of the principle itself. But 
the principle is plain. It is to have a heart and will 
ever ready to alleviate, help, comfort, restore, and 
bless mankind, in any of the manifold forms of mis- 
fortune and suffering to which they are subject. In 
other words, it is the entire spirit of that love which 
takes us out of self and merely selfish objects and 
relations, however pleasing and satisfying these may 
be, and bids us feel, think, and labor for others' wel- 
fare and happiness. It is that entire principle and 
law of our natures which puts us under obligation to 



124 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



serve others' needs ; which breaks up our selfish 
strivings, our merely selfish aims and ambitions ; 
which teaches disinterested devotion to human 
welfare, self-consecration to home and neighborly- 
duty, self-denial and self-sacrifice ; which brings the 
thousand little daily acts of affectionate remem- 
brance and voluntary, unrequitable service that lift 
human life up above the plane of a mere traffic and 
barter, where each is seeking to get the highest 
price for all he gives, into a real communion and fel- 
lowship of heart and spirit ; which brings, therefore, 
to the human race the bond of brotherhood, and 
makes the rational tie of society possible in place 
of the gregarious instinct and savage conflicts of 
animal tribes. 

And what is this principle but the very genius of 
religion, — the important and chief thing which the 
great teachers of all the principal religions have em- 
phasized, the thing especially which Jesus empha- 
sized ? And, as it is one of my aims to-day to show 
how far historical Christianity has departed from 
Jesus' teachings, I confine myself to him as an illus- 
tration. What is the most prominent feature of 
religion, according to Jesus' teaching and practice, 
but this very love and service toward others, — the 
helping the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame 
to walk, the sick to health, the hungry to food, the 
imprisoned to liberty, the suffering to comfort, the 
erring to truth, the ignorant to knowledge, the vi- 
cious to virtue, the degraded and miserable to light 
and usefulness and peace ? What but this very kind 
of work filled his days and made the fruit of his relig- 



PURE RELIGION 



125 



ion ? What else did he mean by the coming of the 
kingdom of God but the advancement of these ob- 
jects of human love and service on the earth ? And, 
when he told the parable of the*Good Samaritan, it 
is plain that he not only meant to inculcate that 
benevolence and pity are moral sentiments, but that 
they are religious also, and produce the very highest 
fruits of religion, when brought into exercise. The 
priest and the Levite, representing the formal, punc- 
tilious, ceremonial, much-professing religion of the 
Pharisaic Jews, went by on the other side. They 
were hastening perhaps to their formal worship, and 
had no word of cheer nor act of help for a suffering 
fellow-being. It was the despised, heretical, and, 
from the Jewish stand-point, irreligious Samaritan, 
that turned aside to proffer the needed sympathy 
and relief. And so, all through Jesus' life and teach- 
ing, it is not the outward deed, whether it be called 
religious or not, nor the profession of the lips, that 
he places foremost ; but it is this quality of love 
toward one's neighbor. And who is thy neighbor ? 
The reply comes, Whomsoever thou canst help. 
" By this shall all men know that ye are my disci- 
ples, if ye have love one to another." 

The second element of religion, according to the 
definition of the Apostle James, is signified in the 
words, "keep one's self unspotted from the world" ; 
that is, integrity, purity, sincerity, incorruptibility, 
successful resistance to all snares and influences of 
evil. It is not to keep one's self aloof from the 
world ; for that would be to violate the first princi- 
ple, just discussed, of sympathy and fraternal help- 



126 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



fulness. It is to live in the world to serve and aid 
it, and yet not to be stained by its vices, not to be 
swayed from the line of rectitude by its flatteries nor 
by its frowns. "To keep one's self unspotted from 
the world ! " Call it simple morality, if you will ; yet 
what a breadth and height of virtue, unattainable to 
how few, do the words include ! Though it be simple 
morality, it is no easy task, no every day phenom- 
enon, thus to keep the native integrity, the mental 
and moral independence, of one's being, — to be 
drawn from the true and the right by no promise of 
favors, by no fear or threat of evil. To keep sin- 
cerity amid the hypocrisies of the world ; to keep 
healthful simplicity amid the enervating extrava- 
gances and luxuries of the world ; to keep purity of 
thought and chastity of act amid the world's moral 
uncleanness and licentiousness ; to keep honest in 
the midst of the world's knaveries ; to keep truthful 
in the midst of the world's falsehoods ; to keep tem- 
perate in the midst of the world's intemperance and 
debauchery ; to keep humility in the midst of empty, 
worldly ambitions ; to keep contentment with slow 
and honest gains in the midst of feverish haste of 
worldly men after riches at any cost ; to keep self- 
respect and self-reliance in the midst of cringing 
conformity to fashion everywhere found in the 
world ; to keep independence of thought and action 
in the midst of fawning subserviency to popular 
opinion; to keep one's convictions of truth and jus- 
tice, if need be, even to the bitter end of dying for 
them, in the midst of tempting bribes of all kinds 
offered by the world ; to keep one's soul loyal to its 



PURE RELIGION 



127 



divine law and destiny, though the whole world and 
all the kingdoms thereof be offered in exchange for 
it, — all this and more is comprehended in that 
phrase, " to keep one's self unspotted from the 
world." "Unspotted," — without speck or stain or 
fleck of evil to mar the infinite beauty of the soul, as 
we might conceive it to exist in a condition of per- 
fect purity. " Mere morality ! " Yet it holds up 
before us a standard of perfection which none of us 
will dare to say he has yet reached, and which, like 
the horizon, goes before us as we advance; ever be- 
fore and upward, because it is a standard embodied 
in the conception of a Being who is infinitely per- 
fect. 

And this second element of the apostle's defini- 
tion of religion is another of the essential elements 
of religion, according to the original teaching of 
Jesus. What is the one burden of the Sermon on 
the Mount but that of sincerity, intellectual and 
moral integrity, the necessity of inward rectitude 
and purity, the uselessness of a mere religion of 
conformity to fashion and tradition, into which the 
heart does not go ? If there is one thing that Jesus 
teaches more than another, it is this : that men will 
be judged, not for what they believe, nor for what 
they say, nor even for what they do, but for what 
they really are in the dispositions and affections of 
their hearts. There is a mere religion, which, how- 
ever showy in its forms, however brilliant and costly 
in its appointments of worship, and however elo- 
quent in its professions of belief, is yet as empty 
and, for anything it will carry out of this world, as 



128 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



unsubstantial, as the breath after it has pronounced 
the words. And, on the other hand, there is a mere 
morality, which, though it makes no pious confes- 
sions, though it goes to duty oftener than to prayer, 
and seldom takes the name of God on its lips, and 
does not dare to call itself religious, yet grows year 
by year in strength and beauty, ascending from beat- 
itude to beatitude, until it reaches the very holy of 
holies of the Divine Nature, and lives the eternal 
life. 

We decide, then, for this ancient definition of 
religion by the first bishop of Jerusalem against all 
the definitions made by bishops and popes, theolo- 
gians and church covenants since. It seems to us 
to cover the whole of human nature ; comprehend- 
ing, on the one hand, the duties each individual soul 
owes to itself, its obligation to keep its own integ- 
rity, purity, and independence, and, on the other, 
the obligations and duties that connect each individ- 
ual soul abroad to other souls, — to home and family, 
to neighborhood, to society, to one's country, to the 
whole brotherhood of man. On the one hand, we 
have the virtues of self-reliance, of moral courage, of 
loyalty to convictions of truth, of obedience to the 
inspirations of one's own soul ; on the other, we 
have the mutual kindness, good will, and regard 
for right that hold communities together, the affec- 
tions of home and friendship, the sweet charities 
that carry relief to every form of deprivation and 
suffering, the multiform humanities that seek to es- 
tablish justice and love between man and man, and 
to improve and elevate the condition of the human 
race. 



PURE RELIGION 



129 



If it be still questioned whether all this is religious 
work or an evidence of religion, I reply, in conclu- 
sion, that I know not what religion is, if it be not 
the practical allegiance of the human heart and life 
to the divine law of life ; if it be not to keep one's 
own soul clean and truthful, pure and upright, ac- 
cording to the highest consciousness of duty which 
is made alive within it, and to help other souls to 
cleanness and purity, to truth, uprightness, and 
peace, according to the inspirations of that love 
which flows through us to bind us in one fraternity 
with our fellow-men. Say not that the soul thus liv- 
ing, even though it uses few religious forms and utters 
few religious words, gives no recognition of religion. 
This very integrity which it has is the energy with 
which it adheres to the law of eternal rectitude. 
This very love which inspires its acts, impelling it 
to constant kindness and beneficence, is an animat- 
ing impulse from the very heart of Infinite Love. 
Let me have that integrity and that love, and I live 
day by day in serene communion with Eternal Being. 
My desires are prayers ; my acts are worship ; my 
kindnesses are sacraments ; my natural advance in 
virtuous effort and achievement is growth in grace; 
and .death, when it comes, is but a step, composedly 
and fearlessly taken, into the opening secrets of a 
life hidden with the spirit in God. 

January 12, 1868. 



X. 



CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT. 

" Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward 
men." — Luke ii., 14. 

The legend and poetry of religion are often as 
instructive and inspiring as its sober facts and 
actual history. Some of the most indestructible re- 
ligious truths owe their preservation and influence 
upon the popular mind to the imaginative and dra- 
matic form in which they have been clothed. And 
there is a large share of this poetic element inter- 
mingled with the early history of Christianity. It 
is only when it is claimed to be actual history that 
it offends our sense of truth. Regarded as poetry, 
we look for the truth beneath the imaginative dress ; 
and our sense of truth is no more disturbed than 
when we read Milton's Paradise Lost or Goethe's 
Faust. With the eye of historical criticism, I read 
the Gospels, and see much that, as historical narra- 
tive, must be rejected; much that, if claimed for 
fact, is as puerile and unworthy of belief as many 
of the mythical stories in the old histories of Greece 
and Rome. But, when I read the same Gospels 
with the eye of religious imagination, which looks 
below form for substance, it reconstructs the dis- 
membered narrative, and brings back, for their 



CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT I3I 

inner ethical or spiritual significance, those rejected 
portions which, when considered as literal facts, 
only stood in the way of truth. Because I deny, 
both from the antecedent improbability and from 
the defective credibility of the testimony, that there 
was ever a man in Judea who could summon by a 
word the buried dead alive from their graves, or 
who, once dead, reappeared in his natural body from 
his own grave, I do not therefore deny that there 
was a man in Judea whose life was a wonderful ex- 
hibition of the supremacy of all true spiritual life 
over the powers and terrors of death, and who gave 
such a mighty impulse to true life in his fellow-men 
as to confirm them in a desire for and a belief in 
an immortal existence. And because I reject the 
account that this man was born and developed in 
any other than the natural way, or had any other 
than natural means of communication with God, I 
do not therefore deny that his character was a most 
marked and precious illustration of the way in 
which Divinity may normally become manifest in 
humanity. 

And, in like manner, though in common not 
merely with purely rationalistic critics, but with 
liberal critics generally (some of them believing in 
the miraculous elements in Jesus' career), I deny 
the historical authenticity of this narrative which 
purports to state things antecedent to and attending 
the birth of Jesus, I do not therefore throw the 
narrative away as worthless legend. Here, I see 
that the imaginative, poetic faculty of religion has 
been at work. But that faculty does not work upon 



132 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

mere nothings, in Judea more than in Greece or 
Egypt. It may have some germ of historical fact 
upon which to work ; or, more likely, it has some 
vision of spiritual truth to express, and will take 
such shreds of history and tradition as it finds at 
hand for delineating and embodying the vision. 
In this legendary narrative of the birth of Jesus, I 
see the pious imagination of the early Christian 
Church endeavoring to construct for its already 
idealized Messiah a fitting dramatic entrance into 
the world. 

In other words, those primitive Christians found 
the sober garb of prose entirely inadequate to clothe 
the emotions of the new life, which had been be- 
gotten in their own bosoms, and the ordinary meth- 
ods of nature inadequate to account for that new 
life. Their very life was poetry, drama, — a sudden 
transition from the prosaic occupations of tax- 
gatherers and fishermen into discipleship to a 
wonderful religious teacher and prophet, whom they 
follow about, day after day and month after month, 
in town and country, over lake and hill, to catch his 
minutest words of instruction and learn of his loving 
wisdom ; whom they accept as the looked-for Mes- 
siah, and expect constantly to see elevated with 
royal pomp and authority to the Messianic throne, 
and themselves raised to corresponding positions of 
comfort and dignity ; whom, with bitter disappoint- 
ment, they see, however, after two or three years, 
executed as a malefactor, and their Messianic ex- 
pectations apparently brought to a tragic end ; but 
then, in some strange way, they find these expecta- 



CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT 



133 



tions revived, triumphant over the grave and the 
cross, and themselves lifted up by a mighty spirit 
and sent forth as missionaries, to proclaim the ad- 
vent of the divine kingdom upon the earth. How is 
it possible that they should put the beliefs and emo- 
tions growing out of such life into logical proposi- 
tions and historical chronicles ? As the life was 
itself dramatic, so did it naturally take dramatic and 
poetic literary forms, in which to clothe its experi- 
ences ; and, just as the childlike, spiritual hope of 
the age painted a vision of the second coming of 
the Messiah in the clouds of heaven, attended by 
the angelic host, to close the old dispensation and 
usher in the millennial era, so did the religious 
imagination, combined with that primitive faith, 
throw itself backward and around the infancy of 
Jesus, which was mainly free from historical data, 
picture scenes which were deemed befitting the 
advent of such a majestic and benignant life. 

There were, probably, shepherds on the plains of 
Bethlehem, tending their flocks, when Jesus was 
born. That would have been a perfectly natural 
fact. Very likely, too, these shepherds shared the 
common belief of their time and race, that the 
Messiah was soon to come. That, too, would have 
been natural. But are we to believe that an angel 
literally articulated to them that the Messiah was 
that day born in a manger in Bethlehem ? and that 
then the heavens opened, disclosing a multitude of 
the heavenly host, who literally sang in chorus, 
audible to the outward ear of the shepherds, " Glory 
to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward 



134 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



men " ? Shall we take all the poetry out of this 
exquisite legend, and lose its fine spiritual truth, by 
thus translating it into a bald statement of outward 
facts, against which historical criticism and science 
will forever protest, and which the common sense of 
men will suspect and disbelieve ? Let me read this 
as history, and I read it under continual protest 
from reason and the sense of historical veracity. 
Let me read it as religious poetry, as drama, and I 
see how the " opened heavens" were not the literal 
parting of the skies to the shepherds at Bethlehem, 
but the lifted and transfigured vision of the early 
Christian believers, a full generation and more after 
Jesus' birth. I see that the opened heavens were 
their own illuminated minds and hearts ; that the 
angelic presence was the courage and faith, the 
hope, charity, and peace, which had somehow come 
to them from the life and teachings of Jesus ; 
that the anthem, whose sublime notes still sound 
through the generations, " Glory to God in the high- 
est, and peace on earth, good will toward men," was 
the echo from their own bosoms of the Beatitudes 
and the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the story 
of the Prodigal Son. This chorus was the song of 
rejoicing, which sung itself out of the new life and 
inspiration and power which had come to all their 
faculties. It was the utterance of the new religious 
faith, which had been begotten in their own souls, 
and which thus early stamped itself on the primitive 
consciousness of the Christian believers. But, since 
they were not metaphysicians tracing conditions of 
mind to their natural causes, nor rigid historians 



CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT 



135 



narrating events only for the sake of historical 
truth, but imaginative religious teachers, anxious to 
impress upon others in the most forcible way their 
own religious experience, the legendary and poetic 
faculty of the age readily seized upon this central 
truth of their experience, carried it back to the birth 
of Jesus as the most fitting time for its origin, and 
represented it, with all the dramatic accompani- 
ments of the story now found in the New Testa- 
ment, as proclaimed by angelic chorus from the 
skies. 

By this poetic mode of interpretation of what in 
itself is essentially poetic, we may preserve the 
truth, while we reject the form, of the old legends, 
myths, and quaint beliefs in Hebrew and Christian 
as well as in other religions. Poetry and music 
have an inner significance entirely apart from the 
form in which they are clothed, and that lasts after 
the form has become obsolete. It is thus that 
poems like Homer's, Dante's, and Milton's keep 
their place in the world. That the form is felt to be 
false does not affect the truth below the form. The 
great oratorios, like the " Creation " and the "Mes- 
siah," can never lose their impressive sublimity, 
though we reject the theological doctrines that cre- 
ated them, — that created rather their dress ; for the 
soul that is in them is older than they, and used 
temporary beliefs only to give itself a form. Their 
substance is something that speaks to the creative 
and redeeming spirit, everlasting in its nature, 
which exists in man himself. We may enjoy grand 
old tunes in familiar words which we no longer 



136 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



believe, because we are not listening for the senti- 
ment of the words so much as for the sentiment of 
the tunes. 

And so, when this Christmas season comes around, 
though no one now can tell just when Jesus was 
born (the festival, in the earliest ages of the Church, 
was a movable one), and though we may not believe 
with those who instituted the festival that it com- 
memorates the advent of a miraculous personage 
upon the earth, still less the incarnation of the 
Supreme God in a single human form, yet the 
festival appeals to something within us, which never 
grows obsolete and never loses its power to stir and 
bless our hearts. And this is because it is not 
so much an historic as a poetic and dramatic com- 
memoration of Jesus ; not an attempt to revive his 
memory through some fixed ordinances and speeches 
on a set day so much as a putting, for a single day, 
of the kindness and good will, which are associated 
with his name, into the actual conduct and rela- 
tions of people with each other. That is, the com- 
memoration is through the actual emotions of the 
heart, and does not exist merely for its literal or 
historical significance; and the heart puts into it all 
that itself feels. 

There is, certainly, an increasing disposition 
among all sects and all classes of people, religious 
or otherwise, to keep Christmas. This cannot be 
from an increasing sense of its being an actual 
historical commemoration, for historical investiga- 
tion and criticism lead the other way; but it is 
because people of all sects, strict or liberal, and 



CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT 



137 



of all classes, religious or irreligious, are beginning 
to feel the poetic significance of the season, without 
regard to its literal and historical basis. It is 
enough that it is a season of mutual good wishes 
and good deeds, of friendly remembrance, of 
family enjoyment and the strengthening of family 
bonds, of the children's glee, of neighborly greeting 
and fraternity ; enough that material and sordid 
enterprises for a moment remit their pressure, that 
the wrangling of parties, the strifes of politics, the 
selfish greed and ambitions of individual careers, are 
for a brief period laid aside, and that the hearts of 
people are open to gentle thoughts, tender affec- 
tions, and gracious charities, while they take each 
other more warmly by the hand, and try for a little 
time each to make every other blest by his pres- 
ence. And all this is a most living commemoration 
of a religion whose nativity began with a song of 
" good will to men." For this is a vital part of that 
good will, keeping the religion alive because it is 
itself so fully alive with the essence of unconscious 
religion. These poetic associations of the Christmas 
season — its tender memories and joys, its fraternal 
congratulations and charities, its actual essays at 
living in the spirit of good will and peace — are 
to-day a stronger bulwark for Christianity than are 
all the creeds of the churches. Even the mythical 
St. Nicholas is, for children, a better introducer to 
Christianity than the historical and dogmatical St. 
Paul ; and the loaded stocking on Christmas morn- 
ing, which has been mysteriously filled during the 
night with the treasures that appeal to a child's 



138 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



heart, is a better teacher of religion than the cate- 
chism. As the little hands draw the bounty from 
those wondrous depths, a lesson is impressed of a 
religion of good will, of an exhaustless sheltering 
love and generosity, which not even the teaching 
of the catechisms and the false creeds and more 
wretchedly false practices of Christendom can ever 
quite obliterate. The child is actually living upon 
this religion of good will, though his consciousness 
is yet innocent of all theologies, and even of the 
word "religion"; and the glee that sings in his 
heart and utters itself all day long in his prattle and 
laughter is his rendering of that old anthem, " Peace 
on earth, good will toward men." 

This anthem, indeed, which was sung out of the 
glorified heart of the first Christian century, and is 
revived by an actual re-creation of its spirit every 
Christmas morning, expresses the purest key-note of 
Christianity at its origin, and embodies what has 
always given that religion its best power ; for, so 
long as we do not say that Christianity is the only 
religion that has the sentiment of love, which is the 
essence of this song, we do no injustice to previous 
religions, but only state a fact of history, when we 
say that Christianity particularly emphasized and 
put into specific form this sentiment both of divine 
and human love. 

The Hebrews came to religion chiefly through 
the moral sense. Hence, their religion, to a great 
extent, became a mass of ethical laws and ceremonial 
precepts, — a list of commandments to do and not to 
do certain things. The Greeks came to religion 



CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT 



139 



chiefly through the intellect. Hence, their religion, 
in the main, among the cultivated was a philosophy, 
— the result of the rational faculty, — and among 
the mass of the people a mythology, — the result of 
the imaginative part of the intellect. Christianity, 
which mingled the Hebrew and the Greek streams 
of religious thought in its own, partook of the char- 
acteristics of both, but also developed the higher 
characteristic of love. It took a germ which we 
find in both of those religions, and cultivated and 
cherished that as the chief thing. It made the 
heart the source and centre of religious faith and 
works, and declared that what neither conscience 
nor reason had been able to accomplish by its 
commands through the Jewish law or the Greek 
philosophy, — that the heart, through its own in- 
stinctive love and faith, could bring to pass : that 
duty and inclination, reason and affection, could be 
atoned. 

And it was this doctrine of love as the controlling 
principle of both divine and human government — this 
doctrine of love as "the fulfilling of the law" — 
which, put into the concrete and dramatic form that 
the Hebrew Messianic conception furnished, gave 
Christianity in its origin its great power to dissolve 
both Judaism and heathenism into itself. It was 
conscience and reason infusing themselves into the 
affections of the heart, and hence getting all the 
power of the heart for the accomplishment of their 
own ends. What a relief it must have been to peo- 
ple burdened with the ceremonials of a written com- 
mandment, and anxiously asking whether they had 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



complied with all the perplexing details of a law 
which followed them into the minutest relations of 
daily life, or whether they were conforming their 
conduct to the highest demands of reason and phi- 
losophy, to find themselves the subjects of an inward 
life and inspiration which swept all these anxieties 
and perplexities into its current, and bore them along 
toward perfect blessedness by its own spontaneous 
impulse ! What a joy to them to feel — not simply 
to know through their intellectual perception, but to 
feel in their inmost hearts — that God was not only 
the Law-giver, but the giver of every good and per- 
fect gift ; and that salvation was not something to 
be purchased through painstaking ceremonies and 
works to satisfy the conscience of the law, but the 
blessed boon of a life born of love and bringing 
forth the natural fruits of love as its saving works. 
What wonder if those to whom this inspiring faith 
had come felt that the millennial era was close at 
hand, and that the heavenly kingdom of divine peace 
and brotherhood was soon to be established on the 
earth ! And what wonder if their childlike imagi- 
nations pictured the heavens themselves opening 
and angelic choirs giving voice to this divine senti- 
ment which had been begotten in their hearts ! 

And, to-day, a new baptism in the spirit of love 
would atone for much that is irrational in the creeds, 
and cure much that is wrong in the practice of 
Christendom. Modern civilization has brought great 
opportunities both for individual and national ag- 
grandizement. Its material inventions and enter- 
prises, its manifold avenues to wealth, its wonderful 



CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT I4I 

development of all the physical arts and sciences, 
and of the outward resources of human comfort, re- 
finement, and happiness, — all these bring not only 
great means for usefulness, but great temptations to 
selfishness. There is a corresponding urgent need, 
therefore, to arouse a spirit of benevolence, of devo- 
tion, of self-sacrifice, — a spirit that shall consecrate 
all these great opportunities, all this enterprise and 
comfort, wealth and knowledge, to the welfare of 
humanity, — to the service of a love that melts away 
all barriers between classes, nations, races, and re- 
ligions, and seeks to bring humanity within the 
veritable bonds of one brotherhood. Most especially 
does this Christmas season fail to impress upon us 
its highest lesson, if it does not carry our thoughts 
and affections beyond the circles where self may 
still be predominant into those outlying regions of 
human want and woe, where the warmth, health, 
and cheer of social love are seldom felt. Not only 
must it bring refreshment and strength to the ties of 
family and friendship, but hospitality and impulse to 
all tender humanities and charities. It was an old 
belief among the Druids, from whom seems to have 
come the custom of decking dwellings and temples 
at this season with evergreens, that the gentle 
spirits of the groves and forests flocked to these green 
boughs in the houses, and so were preserved from 
the killing frosts and storms of winter, to resume 
with the coming of spring their re-creative offices in 
restoring life and beauty .to the woods. So must 
we, if we would know the inner significance of this 
Christmas season, keep all the gentle charities alive 



142 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



in the hospitable warmth of our homes and by the 
glowing fire of our hearts, in order that we may 
send them out thence into the cold and desolate 
places of the world to help on the regeneration of 
human society, and bring in the era of peace and 
good will among men. 



December 26, 1869. 



XL 



THE EDEN OF THE SENSES AND THE 
EDEN OF THE SOUL. 

"Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of 
Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." — Gen. iii., 23. 

The religious philosophy of the Jews represented 
this expulsion from Eden as a curse. But history 
and reason agree in pronouncing it a blessing. 
Here was no fall of man, but a rise. The impulse 
that drove the first human pair out of that dreamy 
and sensuous Paradise, — admitting for illustration 
temporarily the truth of the tradition, — to make 
their way in the world through their own efforts and 
toil, was the first step in human civilization and 
progress ; the first step in the long series of con- 
quests by which mind has gradually asserted its 
power over matter, and the forces of nature have 
yielded themselves as aid and sustenance to man. 
Indeed, there is some intimation of this in the 
Hebrew story itself. Though the eating of the 
fruit of the tree of knowledge is represented as a 
sin which is punished by expulsion from the garden, 
yet the direct consequence of the partaking of that 
fruit is declared to be that the man and the woman 
have become like wito the gods, to know good and 



144 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



evil ; that is, the act for which they were expelled 
from the garden is represented also as their first 
step Godward. And, again, it is said they were 
driven out, not only for what they had done, but 
from a fear on the part of Jehovah lest, having 
already, through eating of the fruit of the tree of 
knowledge, become as gods knowing good and evil, 
the next direct step would be to "take of the tree of 
life, and eat, and live forever," becoming therefore 
still more like Supreme Being. Now, of course, the 
motive attributed to Jehovah in this account — that 
of jealousy of the beings he is said to have created — 
is utterly unworthy of the infinite Being. Accord- 
ing to later views of God, we should conceive it to 
be one of his supreme purposes and joys to create 
beings who, like himself, should live forever and grow 
forever into his likeness. But the Hebrews, at 
least in the early stage of their history represented 
by the Book of Genesis, and for some time after- 
ward, had not risen to this conception. Their 
highest picture of human happiness and destiny was 
that of the Eden from which they believed the first 
parents of mankind had been driven. Their highest 
aim was to recover this primal condition of life. 
Their prophetic vision was of goodly lands, planted 
with stately trees, showering their fruits spontane- 
ously for the sustenance of man, — lands filled with 
gold and precious stones, and all material things 
that the human heart can desire ; a land flowing 
with milk and honey, where everything that man- 
kind could need should be given to their hands 
without labor or effort ; in short, a Paradise regained 



THE TWO EDENS 



145 



on earth, — a life of perfect material satisfaction 
and content. 

Yet this Hebrew description of Eden, and of the 
causes which led to the expulsion of Adam and Eve 
from the garden, is instructive by reason of the very 
contradiction which it contains. It shows that, 
while man's first conception of his destiny is that of 
innocent and peaceful enjoyment of sensuous nat- 
ure, — the finding all his wants, appetites, and in- 
stincts gratified and put to rest, without any mur- 
muring or unsatiated cry for something more or 
something different ; the living directly upon God's 
gifts, let down from the heavens or pushed up from 
the earth, day by day, without any thought or care 
of his own, and with no anxiety for the morrow • 
the existing with childlike content and happiness in 
a perfect material world, without toil, without trial, 
without pain, without any cloud of evil to interrupt 
the sunny days or check the warm, blissful flow of 
this serene atmosphere of material life, — while the 
traditional story of Eden shows this to have been 
the predominant primitive conception of human 
happiness and destiny, it shows, also, that, even in 
the earliest age, underneath this conception there 
lay the germ of another, — the dawning, namely, of 
a spirit that was not and could not be satisfied with 
these material conditions of life, however perfect 
and pleasant they might be to the material nature 
of man. This longing to taste of the fruit of the 
tree of knowledge, which all the sensuous delights 
of the garden could not satisfy or lull, though the 
Hebrew represented it as temptation and its grati- 



146 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



fication as sin, and which, when gratified, opened 
the understanding of the first parents to know 
between good and evil, — and to be, therefore, like 
the Creator himself, — what was this but the dawn 
of moral intelligence, the awakening of conscience, 
the springing to consciousness of a principle in man 
which was not taken from the dust, whence his 
body came, and which could not therefore be satis- 
fied with mere material gratifications or find its 
destiny in the conditions of a material life, however 
perfect? What was it but just what the writer in 
primitive simplicity, regardless of the logical con- 
fusion and contradiction of thought, intimated, — the 
awakening of a power within that material frame- 
work of bones and flesh, which could discern the 
eternal difference between good and evil, between 
right and wrong, between truth and error, — a power 
which could discern and weigh ideas, which was 
capable not merely of sensation and enjoyment, like 
the body, but of thought and aspiration and will, — a 
power which made man like unto God, because 
it was the stirring of a spirit within him which was 
akin to Eternal Spirit itself — nay, identical with it 
— and which made man a living soul? And the 
author of this primitive description was again right, 
when he intimated that the eating of the tree 
of knowledge by man, which was the dawning 
of the moral intelligence, would lead him to put 
forth his hand and take of the tree of life, and eat of 
that, and live forever. For the awakening of the 
moral intelligence, being the birth in man of eternal 
spirit, brings longings, aspirations, and capacities, 



THE TWO EDENS 



147 



which only spiritual realities can nourish and feed, 
which only immortality can interpret and satisfy. 

And the Hebrew was right, again, when he 
represented man as driven out of Eden, that para- 
dise of the senses, because of this awakening 
within him of the ambitious desire to eat of the 
tree of life and be immortal like the gods ; right, 
too, in saying that it was the Divine Spirit that 
drove him forth ; only there was an illogical 
confusion, incident to the religious thought of 
the age, in respect to the reason and significance 
of the act. So far from being driven out of the 
garden as a punishment and curse upon them, these 
first ancestors of mankind went, forth to be blessed, 
and to bless their race after them. The God that 
drove them out was no being in the heavens, ruling 
them as a retributive judge, but the God that had 
been awakened to consciousness within themselves. 
The impulse that led them forth from those scenes 
of enjoyment and peace into the world of toil and 
trial and care was the gesture of the Godlike spirit 
within their own souls ; and, when the gate of that 
earthly paradise opened to send them on their 
journey into the rough wilderness of the world, 
and was barred against their return, then began the 
march of humanity heavenward and Godward. 

Not a fall, then, but a rise, was the departure 
from Eden. It was the necessary result of man's 
coming to consciousness of his moral resources, 
of his spiritual relationship and destiny. It was 
simply impossible that a being created with mental 
and moral aspirations could remain content with the 



148 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



satisfactions that Eden afforded. Let it be, — though 
history and analogy will not confirm the proposition,. 
— yet let it be admitted that man was first created 
in the happy serenity and childlike perfection of 
innocence which the tradition represents. Let it be 
that his dwelling-place was as full of beauty and 
delight as it is possible for a spot of earth to be, — * 
that there, as the story says, grew " every tree that 
is pleasant to the sight, and good for food " ; that 
" gold and bdellium and the onyx," and every pre- 
cious stone, were to be found there, without search 
and without labor ; that the garden was plentifully 
watered with the most beautiful of rivers ; that it 
was stocked with every kind of animal for use 
or pleasure, all living together in harmony and 
mutual helpfulness ; that it was darkened with no 
clouds, afflicted with no storms, marred by no 
noxious weed, absolutely impervious to any physical 
derangement or evil. What then ? Would this be 
the residence that a soul of immortal aspirations 
would choose ? These are all material delights, and 
nothing more. Had Adam remained content with 
these, he never would have been father of the human 
race, only of another, and perhaps a little higher,, 
race of animals. Had Adam been content with 
these, his descendants, perhaps, might have re- 
mained in Eden and had Eden to this day. They 
would have had Eden, but nothing more. It was 
just that within him which made him man which 
made him also dissatisfied with Eden's limitations 
and with its serene, perfect life of material bliss. 
To the living soul, akin to infinite Soul, there 



THE TWO EDENS 



149 



can be no serenity, no satisfaction, no peace, no 
perfection, except in ascent toward infinite perfec- 
tion. Any stationary condition of things, however 
perfect in itself, can never give peace to a being 
whose sense of perfection is only to be met by 
constant endeavor and movement upward. Vain, 
therefore, the expectation that a being, in whom 
a vital intellectual and moral nature has been born, 
can be kept content within any earthly Eden's 
walls. Put all the treasures of all earth's gardens 
into one, and still it will not be the garden that can 
keep a being in whom the power of immortal 
thought has dawned. It was not Adam's sin, but 
his and humanity's salvation, when he aspired to 
taste of the fruit growing on the tree of knowledge, 
whose branches reached over Eden's walls into the 
great universe outside, and whose top pointed 
heavenward, into the infinite spaces ; for, thereby, 
he parted company with the type of animal races 
that had existed before him, left behind mere ma- 
terial satisfactions as no longer sufficient to nourish 
his nature, and began the career of a moral being. 
He left Eden to enter heaven. 

Does any one doubt this ? Shrink from accepting 
the world as it has been, with its roughness and 
hardness, with its physical and moral evils, with 
its struggles and failures, with its suffering and 
its sorrow, its death and its graves, as better 
than that serene picture of life in Eden, where 
toil and struggle, death and suffering, were un- 
known ? Let him, then, compare the virtues which 
could flourish in the still atmosphere of that guarded 



150 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



enclosure with the virtues that he most admires 
in the history of mankind as it has actually been. 
Let him compare that passiveness with this constant 
activity ; that calm content with what is with this 
intense joy of anticipating and seeking something 
better; that undisturbed, listless enjoyment of a 
good possessed with this heroic endeavor to possess 
something beyond present reach ; that receptiveness 
of blessing with this effort to bless ; that resting in 
the care of an external will with this wondrous 
putting forth of native strength and energy ; that 
joy in each day's delight with this courage, faith, 
and hope that are ready to attempt all things ; that 
serenity with this endurance ; that bliss of having 
with this bliss of doing ; that childhood's innocence 
and grace with this manhood's proved integrity and 
power ; that satisfaction with a world complete with 
this noble struggle and progress in the endeavor to 
complete a world ; that satisfaction with finite and 
material ends with these thoughts, aspirations, and 
purposes that only never rest, because drawn upward 
by a path that loses itself in the perfection of in- 
finite intelligence. Humanity in Eden would have 
been scarcely above the " happy family " of animals 
which the showman has trained to live amicably 
together in his menagerie. But humanity driven out 
into the world, to live by the sweat of its brow 
in rough struggles with nature, has turned the 
wilderness into a garden, made a highway for its 
thought over mountain and sea, bended the elements 
to its service, and shaped the inhospitable earth to its 
needs ; and thereby it has disclosed and developed 



THE TWO EDENS 



151 



a power that is verily Godlike in its quality and 
purpose. 

So, too, the persons who have departed farthest 
from the conditions of life in Eden, who have had 
least rest and most service, who have even denied 
themselves all material and temporal satisfactions 
that they might eat the more freely of the pure 
knowledge of spiritual things, who have endured 
perils and tortures, and death even, in their conflict 
with the world, rather than go back to the Eden 
from which the divine discontent in their own souls 
had driven them, — these persons, the Socrates, the 
Pauls, the Buddhas, the Christs, are the heroes of 
this human march heavenward that most challenge 
our admiration and excite our enthusiasm to imitate. 
Yes : notwithstanding all the hardship, bitterness, 
and misery that burdened humanity has had to meet 
in its struggle with the rough conditions of exist- 
ence, remembering even the fearful errors and sins 
into which it has fallen in the uncertain chances of 
the conflict, our secret hearts do yet declare for the 
heaven which is to be won through labor and sacri- 
fice rather than for that which is given in the invol- 
untary gratification of natural instincts. 

And what is thus seen to be true with regard to 
the race historically is true also in individual expe- 
rience. Nature's inexorable rule is, — Pay for all you 
get : take bountifully, unceasingly, of her stores, but 
give faithfully and unsparingly the labor of muscle or 
brain or heart for every atom of her wealth. Every 
human achievement or pleasure has its price. Even 
virtue is not given, but must be toiled for, — must 



152 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



be earned and purchased by constant resolution and 
sacrifice. And those possessions will soon slip from 
us — are hardly, indeed, worth the holding — for 
which we have not paid the cost. They are not 
really ours ; and hence nature's laws, always honest 
and sagacious, contrive quickly to strip us of the 
false ownership. Even on the plane of material pos- 
sessions, in spite of the apparent glaring exceptions, 
the law in general holds true. The proverbial 
saying, that a fortune which quickly comes quickly 
goes, attests the common belief in the necessity of 
labor to give a sure title to ownership in material 
wealth. There is not a father here who does not 
know, whatever his practice is likely to be, that 
it is vastly better for his sons to begin active life 
with only the wealth of strong hands, sound brains, 
and upright, courageous hearts, than, without an 
effort of their own, to have a millionnaire's fortune 
poured into their laps as capital. For strong hands, 
sound brains, and the pure, tfrave heart are not only 
able to buy the best estates of earth, but can pur- 
chase virtue, freedom, and heaven. Give your son 
wealth without the mental and moral qualities that 
can so use wealth as to pay back every cent of it 
into the treasury of the world's commonweal, and, 
though he ride in his carriage and revel in luxury, 
you curse him with a poverty worse than that which 
drives the beggar hungry and foot-sore through the 
streets. And the probability is that nature will soon 
set about to rectify your mistake, and will vindicate 
her law, — that there can be no ownership without pay- 
ing for the title ; will set about the task in paternal 



THE TWO EDENS 



153 



mercy, too, divesting the poor millionnaire of his 
unpaid goods, scattering his wealth, removing one 
by one his luxuries, and by and by driving him out 
of his Eden of rest and pleasure, to begin life empty- 
handed and to earn its blessings as he goes, — but 
thereby to save his soul. 

And, if this is so in material things, much more is 
it true in respect to moral and spiritual possessions ; 
for moral and spiritual possessions are not so much 
gifts or external acquirements as fruits, — fruits of 
steady endeavor and slowly accumulating experience. 
No knowledge, no achievement, no enjoyment, that 
can be given to any soul to-day, can be compared to 
the mental and moral power that grows, with the 
putting forth of effort, in the soul itself, and in 
which lie the germs of all future achievements and 
joys. And this power, which is the foundation of 
all human virtue and progress, can only be had at 
the price of toil and conflict with the world. It 
must be wrung out of the rough and stony condi- 
tions of this earthly existence, — out of its duties 
and obligations, its hardships and trials, its tempta- 
tions and griefs. It is found in no Eden of dreamy 
rest : it must be paid for by resolute purpose and 
effort, just as fabled Hercules won Olympus and the 
company of the gods through toil and sacrifice and 
gigantic labors. 

And the higher the virtue, the greater the price 
that it costs. Jesus paid his very life-blood for the 
virtue that is remembered to-day in hymn, discourse, 
and prayer all round the globe, and which is still a 
delicious spiritual fragrance in the worship of Chris- 



154 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



tendom. The Grecian sage and moralist, after a life 
journey of brave toil and sacrifice, laid down his 
body, too, as the price of an integrity which the 
world delights still to honor. Read Plutarch's 
heroes; read the lives of saints and martyrs, — many 
a one, too, not canonized in any calendar of the 
Church ; ay, read the deeds of America's latest 
martyrs and heroes, with whose glorious names the 
air has not yet ceased to vibrate, and whose lives 
shall yet immortalize some American Plutarch, — and 
what is it in these heroic careers that commands our 
admiration but just that which they paid for the 
achievements which have won their immortal fame, 
— the endurance, the toil, the courage, the patient 
effort and suffering, the precious blood, the talents, 
affection, and promise laid bravely on the altar of 
sacrifice to truth and duty? Such rare and enduring 
virtue can only be purchased at the costliest price. 

But even joys, to be truly enjoyed, must be won 
by just desert. They must be wages for service 
rendered, — the wages of love, of sympathy, of 
healthy and helpful cheer. If there be any posses- 
sion that would seem to be exempt from this law of 
payment, it is a gift from a friend. Yet have you 
not paid for that by your affection ? It is your love, 
and only that, which gives the gift all its value to 
your eyes. Our commonest household joys, the 
children's love and presence, the daily domestic 
warmth and growing bond of intimacy and fellow- 
ship, and all the love, peace, mutual helpfulness, 
happiness, and sanctity we include under that word, 
home, — is there nothing to be paid for these ? Shall 



THE TWO EDENS 



155 



we expect such possessions and joys without labor, 
without cost ? Ah, friends, if so, they will not come. 
Generosity, kindness, helpfulness, disinterested love, 
self-forgetfulness, self-sacrifice, — only these, liberally 
and cheerfully paid, and with renewed payment every 
day, can buy the home. Only the recognition of 
constant obligations and the faithful performance of 
daily services can win so pure and holy a blessing. 
And so long as there is one atom of selfishness in 
our characters, kept back as a reserved fund for our 
own special enjoyment, there is to that extent a 
mortgage on our homes, which every day subtracts 
something from the income of our domestic wealth. 
Ay, the figure may be extended, to cover the whole 
breadth of the theme. As long as there is any 
capacity for a purely selfish enjoyment in our nat- 
ures, which has not yielded to the solvent of the 
higher joy that comes from helpful service to others 
or for serving truth and right, so long there is a 
mortgage on our earthly estate, which must be paid 
to the last farthing before we are able to secure the 
full happiness of heaven. 

But the divine law, though thus stern in its de- 
mands, is wise and merciful in its intent and benig- 
nant in its operation ; and, if it exact strict payment 
for all the solid achievements and blessings of life, it 
does not do it without offering amply to our hands 
the means for meeting all its obligations. If it send 
us out into the world to purchase for ourselves the 
world's wealth of virtue and joy, it places at our feet, 
at every step of the way, the precious metal of 
opportunity, from which the coin is to come that will 



i 5 6 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



make the payment. We have but to stoop, and, by 
invention of brain, work of hands, and steady pur- 
pose of heart, take the rough ore from its bed and 
mould it into shapes for the commerce of truth, 
affection, and philanthropy, and we have the currency 
that will buy eternal possessions. Out of the very 
roughness and hardness of our earthly lot, out of the 
very difficulties and obstacles that perplex and some- 
times close up our path, from the very tears of trial 
and sweat of toil that are wrung from us as we jour- 
ney on over the dusty, burdensome way, do we coin 
the virtue which is to open the doors for us of a fairer 
garden than was ever closed behind Eden's gates. 
Let none therefore despair, none drop weary by the 
way. Let us take up the duties and burdens of life 
with fresh purpose, sure that thus we shall find its 
solid realities and everlasting delights. Its bitterest 
trials, its roughest and loneliest experiences, can be 
converted into the purest valor and fortitude and 
saintliness of character. Its temptations, success- 
fully met and overcome, transfer their strength to 
the soul that has conquered them. Even its direst 
evil, sin, destroyed and with its corruption and rot- 
tenness ploughed into the soil of character, shall 
make it productive of a fairer virtue ; and its direst 
sorrow, premature death, by removing the material 
and temporal veil from Mfe, may teach the lessons 
and disclose the realities of life's eternal nature, so 
that the thickening graves may become mounts of 
vision from which our opened eyes see farther into 
heaven. Thus, everywhere, we win our heavenly 
paradise, not by evading this world's obligations, but 



THE TWO EDENS 



157 



by conquest of the difficulties, trials, and hardness of 
earth. Turning our backs upon the childish delights 
of sensuous Eden, we journey on to find the larger 
satisfactions of manhood and womanhood, — the Eden 
of the soul, — fed day by day with the fruit of that 
growing knowledge of mental and moral laws which 
is the sustenance of celestial beings ; and thereby, 
in very truth, we become strong to " put forth our 
hands and take of the tree of life, and eat and live 
forever." 



November 20, 1870. 



XII. 



THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT. 

" All that we are is the result of what we have thought : it is 
founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts." — Sakya 
Muni. 

The Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, said, 
" Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will 
be the character of thy mind ; for the soul is dyed 
by the thoughts." The more familiar Hebrew prov- 
erb, not far from the same purport, runs, " Keep 
thy heart with all diligence ; for out of it are the 
issues of life." And Jesus, according to Luke, said 
substantially the same thing in the utterance: U A 
good man out of the good treasure of his heart 
bringeth forth that which is good ; and an evil man 
out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth 
that which is evil : for of the abundance of the heart 
his mouth speaketh." 

These different utterances, including that from the 
founder of Buddhism, indicate my subject. They 
point to one of the universal and fundamental princi- 
ples of practical ethics and religion, — the principle, 
namely, that the springs of character and life are in 
the inward affections and dispositions ; that actions 
depend on motives, and motives have their origin in 
the feelings and thoughts of the mind ; that the 



THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT 



159 



moral quality of a man's outward life will be deter- 
mined therefore by the moral quality of his prevail- 
ing thoughts and sentiments. 

But, as soon as it is said that the moral quality of 
conduct depends upon the thoughts and dispositions 
of the mind, a question of responsibility arises. 
How, it is asked, can one be held responsible for the 
thoughts that come into his mind or the affections 
that spring up in his heart ? Are not the roots of 
them there by nature, and do they not originate 
spontaneously ? Do they not come and go indepen- 
dent of any control by the human will ? Since, in- 
deed, the human will itself must be determined to 
action by motives, and these motives must have 
their origin in the sentiments and thoughts of the 
mind, would it not be a very patent instance of 
reasoning in a circle to say that the will may control 
these sentiments and thoughts ? Is it not plain 
that the will is controlled by them, since it cannot 
act without their impulse, rather than that it has 
any control over them ? The difficulty that suggests 
these questions has led to those philosophical theo- 
ries which deny man's free agency, and declare him 
to be the creature of circumstances ; and to those 
theological theories which also deny his freedom, and 
assert that he is absolutely dependent on a super- 
natural influence from Almighty Being to change 
his heart and make him capable of goodness and sal- 
vation. Now, I wish to show, if I may, that there is 
no necessity of resorting to these theories, — that we 
may hold to man's freedom and to the strictest sense 
of his moral responsibility, and yet maintain that the 



l6o TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

springs of character are in the inward thoughts and 
affections. I wish to show that these thoughts and 
affections are not beyond the range of human con- 
trol, but rather that it is over these inner springs of 
conduct that the very centre of moral responsibility 
rests. 

But, first, very much has to be conceded to the 
claim that, when we speak of the thoughts and dis- 
positions of men's hearts, we must take into account 
those predispositions and those primal elements or 
germs of thought which are inherited, and over 
which, as a moral outfit, to begin with, the indi- 
vidual possessor, of course, has no control ; and that 
we must also take into account the conditions and 
circumstances under which the first years, the edu- 
cating years, of life are spent, since these, undoubt- 
edly, though not determined by individual choice, 
are an important agency in moulding the mind and 
heart. I think no metaphysician or theologian will 
venture to maintain to-day that all human souls at 
birth are precisely alike in respect to moral quality, 
so that, if by any possibility all could be subjected 
alike to the same educational discipline and experi- 
ences, they would develop precisely the same type of 
moral character. They are all, of course, equally 
sinless, — equally innocent, so far as any moral re- 
sponsibility of their own is concerned ; but they are 
not all alike equally free from the inherited taint of 
moral evil, and do not start in the race of life all 
alike equipped with the same moral tendencies. 
While all are alike guiltless and cannot be held re- 
sponsible for anything they inherit, it is yet true that 



THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT l6l 

some are born heavily laden with the woful burden of 
ancestral vices, which will surely incline them to posi- 
tive moral transgression ; while others may be pre- 
disposed, by a more fortunate moral inheritance, to 
paths of virtue; and others, still, may begin their 
career with more neutral characteristics. The idea 
that all human minds at birth are like a sheet of 
white paper, equally ready to receive any impression 
that may be made upon them, equally pure in color 
and fine in texture, may be said to be exploded. 
Physiology and psychology both deny it. Mental 
and moral features are doubtless inherited, as well as 
physical. The truth is, and the better it will be for 
mankind the sooner this truth is known and acted 
upon, the elements of character begin before birth. 
It is not to be claimed that ideas are innate, nor 
that any moral impulses and affections are at birth 
in a developed condition. But every infantile mind 
is full of the germs of ideas, dispositions, impulses ; 
and these have all inherited some moral bias. Phys- 
iological science teaches that the very texture of the 
mind at birth, its quality of fineness or coarseness, 
its measure of strength, edge, power, its innermost 
substance and fibre, its capacity for one kind of ac- 
complishment rather than another, are largely deter- 
mined by ancestral antecedents. And, since the 
antecedents are very different, the stuff and texture 
of different minds at the outset are very different. 
Instead of all being like a sheet of white paper, 
they differ just as paper differs according to the 
material of which it is made. Some are pure white 
and of delicate fibre, others are coarse and dingy ; 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



some are flexile, others fragile ; some tractable, 
others obstinate. We shall concede then, I think, 
that characters do not all start alike ; that there are 
innate differences of mental and moral tendency 
which must have much to do with determining the 
after thoughts and dispositions which are to furnish 
the motives of conduct. 

So, too, it must be admitted that the surroundings 
after birth, during the early years of education es- 
pecially, — surroundings for which the individual can- 
not be held responsible, — will necessarily have great 
influence in shaping the thoughts and dispositions 
which are to appear in the subsequent course of life. 
It is to speak in the face of the most open facts of 
society to say that circumstances have nothing to do 
with the creation of character, that all comes from 
within. The evident fact is that, for a certain period 
of human life, that which is within depends very 
much upon the character of that which is without. 
There are certain degraded classes of society, espe- 
cially in large cities, where poverty, misery, filth, 
disease, vice, and crime prevail to such a degree 
that you know it would be next to impossible for 
a child who should be born and should grow up 
there, without knowing any other influences, to 
come to useful and virtuous manhood ; or for one 
well-born, if taken into such scenes of life in infancy 
and kept there, to escape the contamination. The 
child of civilized parents, brought up from early life 
by savages, becomes degraded toward their condition. 
Yet the same child, if restored in youthful manhood 
to civilization again, would doubtless incline more 



THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT 



163 



readily to the habits of civilized society than would 
the child of a savage. The original inherited blood 
would assert itself, proving that it cannot be 
wholly neutralized by the power of circumstances. 
On the other hand, a child born in the midst of those 
dregs of misery, vice, and crime which ought to put 
our civilization to shame, if rescued in early life from 
the degradation and placed in a refined and virtuous 
home, will most likely grow up to lead a moral life ; 
though it may be that the original bad blood, the 
inherited predispositions, will sometimes appear, and 
that, under a change of surroundings, they might re- 
assert themselves with tremendous power. It does 
seem, however, that virtuous surroundings, if per- 
sistently continued, generally get the better of bad 
descent and birth, — as witness the successful results 
of Children's Aid societies. Contact with living virt- 
uous character proves a stronger power than the 
evil which lurks in the blood from dead ancestors. 
But let us not think that hereby we have a right to 
boast much over our ancestors. For, probably, the 
converse of this proposition is also true, — that the 
immediate influence of vicious character, living, is 
a stronger power during the susceptible years of 
youth than the inherited virtue of ancestors who are 
dead. The rule works, unfortunately, both ways. 

It will have to be conceded, then, that to birth 
and education, to inherited mental and moral ten- 
dencies, and to the outward conditions amid which 
the growing years of life are spent, the mind owes 
in a great degree the quality of its thoughts and 
dispositions. And hence, since the predominating 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



thoughts and dispositions of the mind determine 
character, it must be allowed that character is 
largely dependent on birth and on circumstances. 

But, because of this admission, is there no room 
left for individual responsibility and for individual 
effort ? Because we do not create all the materials 
out of which our characters are formed, but have to 
take such as are provided by nature's laws or are 
given in a condition of things not of our appointing, 
does that destroy all our free agency in the matter ? 
Because we do not originate outright within our- 
selves all the dispositions and thoughts whence 
spring the motives that determine conduct, have we, 
therefore, no accountability for our conduct ? By 
no means does it follow from these facts that free- 
dom and accountability are destroyed, and that there 
is no room for individual volition and culture in the 
development of character. On the contrary, from 
what has just been said of the power of circum- 
stances and of the more direct appliances of educa- 
tion over the quality of the inner thoughts and 
impulses, we may see just where the responsibility 
lies, and to what point the aid of moral volition may 
be directed most successfully. We see that it is 
a fact that, to change the surroundings, to put 
virtuous influences in the place of vicious and care- 
ful culture in the place of neglect, is to change 
the current of the mind's thoughts, to transform the 
heart's impulses, and hence to develop good char- 
acter where most inevitably bad character would 
have appeared, if things had been left to their own 
course. Whether, then, every individual is responsi- 



THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT 



165 



ble or not for the thoughts and impulses that are 
most active within him, it may be rightly said that 
every generation of mature men and women in 
civilized society is responsible in no small degree 
for the thoughts and impulses that shall animate the 
rising generation and help to shape its character 
and conduct. Nay, we may go farther than this. 
Remembering how potent are inherited tendencies, 
we may say that every generation of mature men 
and women is to a large extent responsible for the 
moral quality of the generation that is yet unborn. 
There would be little need of what theologians have 
called " regeneration," or " being born again," if 
human beings only came into existence at first 
through right conditions of generation and natural 
birth. 

Even then, if we were to assume that all the ele- 
ments of character are included under the two terms, 
inheritance and education, we should not get rid of 
the doctrine of moral accountability. The seat 
of accountability might be shifted somewhat, but the 
pressure of moral obligation which the word covers 
would be none the less strong. Men might be 
inclined to blame themselves less for what they 
are, . but they would feel more accountable than 
they now do for the condition of society in general 
and for the generation coming after them. Why, 
the very foundation of all theories of education 
is that the natural dispositions and thoughts of the 
mind may be changed and improved by culture ; 
that they may be diverted from one channel into 
another ; that they may be transferred from one 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



object to another; that they may be elevated from 
low purposes to high ; that minds may be trained 
to act from good motives rather than bad, and to 
spend their energies in noble pursuits rather than 
ignoble. And people of ail classes, good and bad, 
are continually acting upon this theory in society. 
Though it be claimed that individuals have no free 
control over, and no responsibility for, their own 
thoughts and impulses, no fact is more patent than 
that society is constantly acknowledging its ac- 
countability for the thoughts, dispositions, and 
character of its coming members. Parents feel 
it toward their children, teachers toward their 
pupils, public speakers and writers toward their 
hearers and readers. Nay, the very individuals who 
may deny that they have any freedom in respect 
to their own dispositions and sentiments, or that they 
have any moral accountability for the character of 
those dispositions and sentiments, are continually 
trying to persuade other people into a change of 
sentiments and dispositions. Though professing that 
they are not free to control their own minds, they 
evidently believe in their power to mould the minds 
of others. How is this, then ? Can it be that we 
have power over the thoughts and dispositions of 
our neighbors, and none over our own ? 

The answer to this question must certainly be in 
the negative ; and it brings me to another point, and 
the culminating one, in our theme. That same kind 
of power which lies in education, in culture, in im- 
proved circumstances, in the presentment of higher 
ideals of action to change the dispositions and ten- 



THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT 



167 



dencies out of which character springs, we may exer- 
cise over ourselves. Character depends upon our 
habitual thoughts. The quality of the conduct and 
life will follow the quality of the prevailing disposi- 
tions of the heart, but our habitual thoughts and 
the prevailing dispositions of the heart are very 
much what we choose to make them. They are not 
forces rushing in upon us, and bearing us hither and 
thither, without any consent or action of our own. 
Man cannot, it is true, act without a motive. But 
he has power to choose between different motives 
or classes of motives. He can put himself under 
the sway of one set of motives rather than another. 
He can select the influences that mould his actions. 
He can change, to some extent, his circumstances, if 
he finds them unfavorable to the right development 
of his character. He can do with himself, in this 
respect, precisely what a wise educator would do 
with a pupil ; that is, he can remove the conditions 
which excite the impulses and thoughts he would 
repress, and put in their place conditions that will 
stimulate the thoughts and impulses that need to be 
cultivated. 

For instance, a man finds himself growing more 
and, more engrossed in business. That which was 
originally taken up simply as a means of gaining a 
livelihood has come to occupy all his thoughts and 
energies. It absorbs him wholly. He lives in it all 
the hours of the day, and dreams it over at night. 
His affections are in danger of being dwarfed, his 
sympathies dried up, his interest in the great ques- 
tions that concern human welfare destroyed. He 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



has grown to love wealth, and to acquire it for its 
own sake, without thinking of its noble uses. Now, 
when a man finds himself coming to this stage in his 
business life, what can he do ? He can resolutely 
stop and take new bearings. He can say : " I will 
take some hours every day out of my business for 
the culture of my mind and heart. I will devote 
more time to home intercourse. Here are books I 
will read. Here are art galleries I will visit. Here 
are charities and philanthropies, public and private, 
that need my interest and aid." Such a resolution 
resolutely made and pursued will work the change 
he desires. He is now a proof of the maxim of 
Aurelius that the mind will take color and character 
according to the habitual thoughts. His thoughts 
have been given habitually to business, until his 
whole mind, heart, and soul are there ; and he is in 
danger of becoming a mere business machine. But 
he may give a different kind of proof of the same 
maxim, by habituating his thoughts to other inter- 
ests and pursuits. His character will follow his new 
habits of thought. 

Or suppose that one is addicted to sensual indul- 
gence. He, too, is an illustration of the maxim. 
His character follows the thoughts which he in- 
dulges. Let him, then, enter the conflict there, with 
his thoughts. Let him put himself under influences 
that will lead his thoughts away from the intemper- 
ate demands of appetite. Let him avoid the places, 
scenes, companions, associations that excite these 
appetites, if he cannot otherwise keep his virtue. 
Let him hasten to strengthen the better desires and 



THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT 



169 



aspirations of his nature by re-enforcing them with 
the power that comes from virtuous companionship 
and from pure and cultivated circles of society. Let 
him put himself under the magic spell of a good 
book, which shall exorcise the demon of passion. 
Let him flee to the purifying influences of nature, 
which is often potent to cool the hot blood of animal 
desire. In some way, let him break up the train of 
his thoughts, and turn them in a pure direction. 
There is where the battle must be fought and won. 

Or suppose that one is given to any form of self- 
indulgence, — to luxurious ease, or indolence, or 
undue love of pleasure, or excessive delight in social 
display and in the excitements of fashionable life. 
Here, again, it is a question of bringing the mind 
under a new set of influences, so that those impulses 
that lead to a merely frivolous and selfish life may 
be checked, and nobler desires may be aroused to 
activity in their place ; that is, it is a question of 
governing one's thoughts, of turning them from one 
object to another. Let such a person seek the so- 
ciety of the benevolent, read the biographies of self- 
sacrificing and philanthropic men and women, — good 
biographies are among the best inspirers, — actively 
participate in some good work of charity, and the 
better current of thought will surely begin ; and, by 
persistent and patient effort to keep in this current, 
nobler motives of conduct will in time become ha- 
bitual. As the thoughts, so will the life become. 

And, even without this aid from external influ- 
ences, man has the power to break and turn the 
train of his thoughts, and so to call into exercise one 



lyo 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



set of motives rather than another. With most of 
us, perhaps, the easier and surer way to turn the cur- 
rent of thought is to re-enforce the will with some 
change of outer influence ; yet it is man's preroga- 
tive to be able by internal power to control the cur- 
rent of his thought, — to set it by sheer will or by 
voluntary mental effort in this direction rather than 
that. And he has the healthiest and the sanest mind 
who can do this best, or who keeps the mastery over 
his own mental household. We all know in our own 
experience, I think, something of this power, though 
<rare may be the instances of its complete possession. 
Yet there are persons who, in a day, at the mere 
bidding of reason and right, have broken up the 
habits of years, and changed their whole after con- 
duct ; and they are the manly and mighty persons who 
have most of this power, — who are able to say, stand- 
ing up in the majesty of their moral nature, "Let 
come what may of evil enticement from the influ- 
ences that surround me or from the appetites that 
lurk in my brain, my will shall be swayed only by 
the inner forces of reason and conscience, and that 
love which seeks not its own." Such a one is not 
so much the creature of circumstances as their crea- 
tor. And to this type of character we all aspire, — a 
type of character wherein, though the texture of the 
outward life will necessarily conform to the quality 
of the inner thoughts, yet the thoughts will be ser- 
vants of the power of moral choice, which stands 
supreme over all. 



April 23, 1871. 



XIII. 



EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS. 

" Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring 
from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness 
and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." 
— Luke i., 78, 79. 

In this affectionate and poetic phrase does some 
early Christian believer record his impressions of the 
mission of Jesus. It seemed to him like the dawn 
of a new day, like the glory of a sunrise, like the 
shining of a light in the midst of darkness, like the 
springing of life out of the shadow of death and 
the mould of the grave. We may appreciate the 
tender gratitude of his words, the fine ideality of 
his thought, though not interpreting him literally. 
We must allow to the element of imagination large 
room and influence in the shaping of religious beliefs 
and movements. And this sentence, as a prophetic 
description of the mission of Jesus, — represented as 
prophetic, though written after the event, — seems 
especially consonant with the sentiment of Easter 
Day, which has always been one of the poetic and 
dramatic days in the history of the Christian Church. 
To trace, indeed, the beliefs and practices that per- 
tain to this day through the eighteen centuries of 
Christian history would almost give us the history 



172 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



of Christianity itself. I propose, in this discourse, 
to note some of the points in the historical associa- 
tions of the day, which may serve to bring into 
clearer light the truths and traditions, the reality 
and the poetry, that have woven themselves into 
this Christian festival, known as Easter Sunday. We 
shall see, perhaps, that not in the literal, prosaic 
interpretation of the day are its finest meanings to 
be found, but that behind its alleged outward facts 
are ideal sources of belief and sentiment that are 
luminous with satisfying evidences of truth. 

In the first place, let us look at the primary belief 
in which the celebration of the day began. Of 
course, to the large majority of the Christian Church 
Easter commemorates one event, and only one, — 
the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb. It was, 
we may say with truth, from the apostles' belief in 
the resurrection of Jesus that Christianity started 
as an organized specific religion. That was the one 
doctrine, more than any other, that was the burden 
of apostolic preaching. It is extremely doubtful, 
indeed, whether the disciples would have rallied 
from the bitter disappointment and grief into which 
they had been plunged by the crucifixion of Jesus, — 
whether they would have found any standing-ground 
for the proclaiming of the new faith, — had not this 
belief in the resurrection of their master somehow 
come to them. But, however this may be, it is 
certain — the New Testament and tradition both put 
the fact beyond question — that it was their belief 
in his resurrection that bridged the gulf between 
the actual life of Jesus and historical Christianity. 



EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS 1 73 

Yet, if we were asked to analyze that belief and 
state its cause, a rational, historical criticism would 
have to take issue, I think, with the popularly 
accepted answer of Christendom. A thorough ex- 
amination of the evidence, noting its discrepancies, 
noting, too, the way in which the New Testament 
records were formed, — their undoubtedly late origin 
and gradual growth after the events to which they 
refer took place, — such an examination, I believe, 
will most certainly fail to establish the fact of a 
physical resurrection of Jesus, or even that the first 
apostles uniformly and definitely believed in the 
resurrection of his natural body. Paul's testimony, 
certainly the oldest and the most undisputed that 
we have to the fact that some kind of resurrection 
was believed in, favors the idea of a spiritual resur- 
rection rather than that of the rising of the physical 
body. For he argues from the resurrection of Jesus 
to the resurrection of all mankind, and yet distinctly 
disclaims believing, with reference to mankind in 
general, that the same body is raised that is buried. 
"Thou sowest not," he says, "that body which shall 
be ; ... but God giveth it a body" — that is, giveth 
to the soul a new body — "as it hath pleased him." 
The probability is that the more practical and mat- 
ter-of-fact of the primitive Christians believed in the 
material resurrection of Jesus, for they could not 
otherwise grasp the fact of his resurrection at all, 
or of his continued existence ; but that the more 
speculative and mystical among them, or the more 
intelligent we may say, those like Paul and Apollos 
(if he be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews), 



i/4 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



believed simply in his spiritual resurrection, which 
had become manifest, as to Paul, in some vision. 
The testimony itself that is presented in the Gos- 
pels shows that those who gave it had no clear 
comprehension of the phenomena. The testimony 
is conclusive as to the existence of a belief in the 
resurrection of Jesus ; but, considering the circum- 
stances of the case and of the age in general, such 
a belief may easily have arisen without the fact of an 
actual bodily resurrection. To my mind, looking at 
the problem from every point of view, it seems infi- 
nitely easier to account for the belief in the resur- 
rection from natural causes than to suppose such 
a stupendous miracle as would be the reappearing 
of a man who had been actually dead from the tomb. 
And since the positive evidence is not sufficient to 
establish so momentous an event, a rational judg- 
ment will withhold assent to it, even if all the natural 
causes of the belief in it . cannot now be satisfac- 
torily traced. In short, the New Testament story of 
Jesus' resurrection must be remanded to the realm 
of Christian mythology. 

But because we may not believe in the physical 
resurrection of Jesus, because we read as uncertain 
tradition and poetical legend the accounts of the 
rolling away of the stone from the door of the 
sepulchre and of the coming forth of Jesus there- 
from, and of the appearance of the angels and of 
the resurrection interviews with the devoted women 
and the disciples, do we for this reason say that 
there is nothing to commemorate, that nothing hap- 
pened ? By no means. Such a movement as his- 



EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS 1 75 

torical Christianity did not begin in a mistake, in a 
delusion, in a fancy of two or three women who may 
have been beside themselves with disappointment 
and grief. Much less did it begin with a deliberate 
imposture. It began in a great fact, but the fact 
was mental rather than material ; and the material 
form which it assumed in the legend of the physical 
resurrection was only the dress in which the fact 
clothed itself according to the fashion of the times, 
— the medium by which it became current with the 
common understanding of the age. And this fact 
was the mental and spiritual transformation, by 
which the disciples of Jesus passed from the crush- 
ing sorrow and despair into which his crucifixion 
had suddenly thrown them, to the faith, hope, and 
courage which enabled them to take up the cause 
which at first seemed to have been buried irrecover- 
ably in his grave, and to carry it forward to triumph. 
They had fled from his cross ; but, somehow, they 
had become strong now to face their own unflinch- 
ingly. They had slept when he met his agony in 
Gethsemane, apparently not believing it possible 
that he, their Messiah, could come to the ignominy 
of the crucifixion. Now, they were fully awake ; and 
no burden was too heavy for them to take up. The 
cross itself, that had been their shame, had become 
their glory. So long as Jesus was with them, they 
had been dull of understanding and had miscon- 
ceived continually what he had taught them of that 
heavenly kingdom which he had hoped to inaugu- 
rate. Now, in the sharpness of their pain at his 
departure, their vision seems to have been opened, 



176 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



so that they discerned more truly the nature of the 
work to which he had called them. So long as he 
was with them, they were children, looking to him 
for every slightest expression of command or wish 
to determine their conduct. Now, they were of age, 
strong men and brave women, with opinions and 
faith of their own, confident in their own powers, 
and prepared to act for themselves. Before, they 
were the flock, humbly following, but shrinking and 
timid. Now, they were the shepherds to collect 
larger flocks, and bold to lead. Here, in this mental 
transformation, was the great fact, the real resurrec- 
tion. It would have been of little practical moment 
if Jesus had actually reappeared from the grave as 
recorded, coming so charily and vanishing again so 
soon. But it was of the utmost moment that the 
disciples should rise out of their despondency and 
grief to the faith and courage that comprehended 
and mastered the crisis. 

But some one will argue that the physical resur- 
rection of Jesus was needed to produce this trans- 
formation and was really the cause of it. But have 
you not witnessed similar experience in the common 
history of human careers ? Why resort to an out- 
ward miracle, to an abnormal phenomenon of flesh 
and blood, to explain a spiritual process the elements 
of which are the common property of humanity? 
What a disappointment and dismay fell upon these 
Northern States after the first inglorious defeat at 
Bull Run ! Yet in that defeat was the nation's 
ultimate victory. Out of it came the first substan- 
tial realization of the work to be done, as well as the 



EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS I J J 

heroic determination to do it. Had our army there 
triumphed and advanced to Richmond, and there, as 
was then hoped, put a quick end to the rebellion, 
slaves would have been still working under the lash 
in the South. Those first defeats of the war, bitter 
as they were to bear, were the cross by which the 
nation rose to the glory of the proclamation of free- 
dom and of equal rights. You may see the same 
fact all through history. " The blood of the martyrs 
is the seed of the Church." You may see it also in 
private and personal experience. Who has not ob- 
served character developing unexpected strength 
and solidity, when outward props have been taken 
away, and it has been thrown back upon its own 
centre ? Women, who have seemed weak, clinging, 
invalid, seldom thinking or doing for themselves, 
becoming clear-minded, self-reliant, and roused to 
heroic action, when some great exigency of bereave- 
ment has come upon them ? Young men and young 
women, who have only been wont to lean on others, 
suddenly springing to maturity, and developing a 
power they were never suspected to possess, under 
the pressure of some severe external condition that 
has forced responsibility upon them ? Soldiers in 
the crisis of battle, nerved up to almost more than 
mortal strength, as the contest goes hard against 
them and they feel the cause slipping from their 
grasp, which one more mighty effort may redeem ? 
In all these and similar cases, the emergency seems 
naturally to develop the power that is required to 
meet it. The very need touches the springs of sup- 
ply. And in harmony with this general law came 



i;8 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



the transformation of mental condition by which the 
disciples of Jesus passed out of the stage of helpless 
sorrow and despondency to the attitude of resolution 
and faith. 

Moreover, to suppose that the miracle of an out- 
ward resurrection was necessary to effect in them 
this change is to disparage the influence of Jesus' 
life and teachings upon them. Can we suppose that 
the greatness of his character, the heroism of his 
career, had had so little power upon those with 
whom he had daily lived, that, as soon as he was 
gone, they would have forgotten and forsaken the 
cause to which he had called them, unless he ap- 
peared to them from the tomb ? Is it not a more 
natural thought that the memory of what he had 
been to them, the recollection of his words, and the 
subtle influence of character that had passed from 
him to them, would be a strong incentive after he 
had left them not to let his cause fail in their 
hands ? To suppose an apparition of his body after 
death to be necessary to convince them of his Messi- 
anic mission is to suppose that a physical wonder 
was of more moment than the truths he had uttered 
and the life he had lived ; that a bodily manifesta- 
tion was a fact of more weight than spiritual inspira- 
tion and moral fidelity. 

Nor, again, was such an apparition required to 
enable them to believe in a future life. They 
believed that already; and they believed in the 
general resurrection of the dead, though whether 
material or spiritual may be a question. The Jews 
generally, before the time of Jesus, as the New 



EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS 1 79 

Testament itself bears witness, believed in these 
two doctrines. They had been familiar with these 
doctrines since the captivity in Babylon. Only the 
Sadducees, a cultivated but comparatively small sect, 
denied them. If we do not find them in the canon 
of the Old Testament, we find them explicitly 
stated in the Apocrypha. The resurrection of Jesus, 
therefore, was not needed to convince the disciples 
of his own or their continued existence after death. 
Yet the inestimable value of his life, the greatness 
of his virtue, the prophetic character that he pos- 
sessed, the Messianic character that was attributed 
to him, — all this intensified and vitalized with new 
power the old belief in a life beyond the present. 
Such a man as this, they felt, could not die. Had 
it not been written, " Righteousness is immortal " ; 
"The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, 
and there shall no torment touch them ; and, though 
they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their 
hope full of immortality " ? How, then, should not 
such a righteous person as this survive, even though 
the cross had done its cruel work of destruction 
upon his body and the grave had claimed it for 
corruption? Thus must their grief have found 
refuge from its own despair. And since, because of 
his prophetic wisdom and nobility of character, they 
had accepted Jesus as Messiah, and since the Mes- 
siah they still believed him to be, this was an addi- 
tional reason why they could not believe him to have 
utterly vanished with his body. His promises — so 
their bereaved but still hoping hearts assured them 
— must yet be fulfilled, his work must go on, his 



l80 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

kingdom must be established ; and he himself, not far 
away, would doubtless, in due time, reappear to claim 
the sceptre. It was natural that they should have 
thus reasoned. And out of such thoughts, beliefs, 
memories, and hopes, mingled very likely with some 
subjective vision on the part of some one or more 
of the primitive disciples, similar to that afterwards 
experienced by Paul, came, as it seems to me, the 
belief in the material resurrection and the various 
legends concerning it, that gradually took shape and 
were finally embodied in the New Testament record. 

What, then, is it that Easter really celebrates ? Not 
the rising of the crucified body of Jesus, but the rising 
of his crucified truth ; not his physical resurrection, 
but his spiritual resurrection ; not the superiority of 
his flesh to the laws of death, but the superiority of 
a noble soul to all torments of persecution, to all 
bonds of the grave. It commemorates the triumph 
of truth over error, of goodness over wrong, of 
light over darkness, of life springing up out of the 
corruption of death, and converting death itself into 
elements of sustenance and beauty. 

That the early Christians themselves had no 
very definite data as to the phenomena of an 
outward resurrection is manifest from the fact that 
the churches very early fell apart concerning the 
time when they would celebrate it. The Eastern 
churches, following, as they claimed, a tradition 
from John, the disciple, adopted the fourteenth of 
the month called Nisan as the day of the crucifixion, 
and the third day after that as resurrection day, on 
whatever day of the week it might come. But the 



EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS l8l 

churches in Europe, following, as they claimed, 
a tradition from Paul, adopted for the celebration 
the Sunday nearest to the full moon of that month, 
without regard to the day of the crucifixion or the 
alleged day of resurrection. This dispute lasted 
for two centuries, at times becoming very serious 
and bitter ; and it was not terminated until the time 
of Constantine and the Council of Nice, in the year 
325, when the principle of the rule of the West- 
ern churches rather than the Eastern prevailed, 
and Easter was made a movable festival. It seems 
likely that the simultaneous occurrence of some 
pagan festival in Southern Europe, which could be 
transformed into the Christian, helped to determine 
the day, as well as to impart some marked features 
to the celebration after this time. Popular sports 
and curious superstitions of various sorts came 
to be mingled with the religious solemnities of 
the day. And these, probably of pagan ancestry, 
are still extant in countries where Catholicism has 
had most power. There arose very early, too, a 
difference of opinion on the very question we have 
been considering, — whether Jesus rose or not in the 
same physical body that had been buried. Some of 
the. most learned of the Christian Fathers contended 
that he rose only in a spiritual body. Origen, Chry- 
sostom, and Clement held this opinion. And this 
question never was settled by any decree of a 
council, so that it is maintained by some scholars 
that the orthodox theory in the Roman Catholic 
Church to-day is that the resurrection of Jesus was 
in his spiritual body, and not in the material. 



182 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



If we trace the history of Easter celebration 
through the later centuries of Christianity, we shall 
lind it taking shape according to sectarian views and 
characteristics. Among the Roman Catholics, and 
especially in Rome, it is still a great festival, cele- 
brated with vast pomp and ceremony ; the Pope, as 
Christ's vicegerent on the earth, receiving the hom- 
age considered to be due to the risen Lord. Where 
Puritanism and Quakerism have prevailed, the com- 
memoration has been reduced to the very minimum of 
recognition or has been entirely abolished, because 
to these severe sects the hilarity and ceremonial dis- 
play which had become connected with the festival 
in England seemed a scandal to the name of relig- 
ion, that could only be removed by abolishing the 
festival itself. In recent years, this extreme Protes- 
tant condemnation of the observance of the day has 
been nearly obliterated ; and Protestant churches 
now vie with the Catholic and Episcopalian in Easter 
celebrations. 

But one of the most noteworthy events connected 
with the history of Easter Day is that which hap- 
pened when Christianity came into Germany, and 
effected or received the conversion of the Teutonic 
nations. It found there a festival in the early spring, 
of ancient date, in honor of Eostre, or Ostera, the 
goddess of spring. This festival commemorated the 
return of the sun to Northern climes after its long 
contest with the genii of winter, — with frost, cloud, 
storm, and death. It commemorated the revival of 
the forces of nature, the fresh hopes that came to 
man and beast, the promise of a new seed-time and 



EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS 1 83 

harvest. It was a thank-offering to the sun as the 
annual creator of the sustenance and beauty which 
the earth, at the touch of his fertilizing rays, pro- 
duced for man. It was a festival, therefore, of grate- 
ful reverence and piety. It was religious, but it was 
also a day of popular joyousness, This festival of 
Teutonic paganism Christianity did not abolish, but 
adopted and transformed, in its primary feature, into 
a celebration in honor of the resurrection of Jesus. 
The two celebrations, in fact, came together and 
gradually adapted themselves to each other, until 
they coalesced finally into one, which retained some 
of the features of both. The very name of the 
pagan festival was retained, — Easter, from Eostre, 
— as were some of its popular out-door sports and 
traditions. The flowers — emblem of nature reviving 
from her winter of death — which have become such a 
feature of the day in modern Christian churches, also 
the eggs, traditionally associated with the day, and 
symbol of life, are a reminiscence of the old Teutonic 
celebration rather than of that which began in Judea. 
And yet they fit harmoniously to both. The two 
celebrations, before they coalesced, had so much in 
common that the conjunction was natural and easy. 
Both were on a day dedicated to the worship of the 
sun. The Christian festival had already imbibed 
some features of hilarity from paganism in Southern 
Europe. The fact, too, that Jesus was called the 
"Sun of Righteousness," " the Light," "the Day- 
spring from on high," that his religion came from 
the East, the home of the sun and the land of the 
sunrise, made the transition not difficult from the 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



pagan to the Christian interpretation of the festi- 
val. And, for one, I like to think that there is this 
variety of sentiment and tradition which has come 
into the celebration of this day, — that in it heathen 
as well as Christian memories mingle. It is the 
same with the Christmas festival. I love to think 
that the roots of beliefs and practices in modern 
Christendom run down so deep into the past, not 
stopping eighteen centuries back, but threading all 
the ages and spreading out widely through the com- 
mon soil of our humanity. I love to think that, in 
this Easter festival, kept in Europe and America 
to-day, there mingle traditions, though it may be 
unconsciously, of a time when our hardy Teuton 
fathers, independent but reverent, gathered, not in 
temples made with hands, but in the primeval woods 
and sacred groves built by nature's architect, and 
gave utterance to their grateful praise to the Power 
that every year re-creates the earth, clothes it with 
beauty, and fills it with manifold forms of life and 
joy. Say you that they worshipped the sun ? 
Rather was it the Power within or behind the sun, 
the sustaining providence of the universe, bringing 
seed-time and harvest without fail in their season, 
and guiding this great orb of light, heat, and life for 
daily and yearly beneficence to man. There was 
trust and gratitude in their worship, — grateful reli- 
ance upon the order of nature. Though not in 
Jerusalem nor on Mount Gerizim, they yet, in these 
stately temples of nature, which Christianity has but 
faintly copied in its Gothic cathedrals, worshipped 
in spirit and in truth. To find these evidences of 



EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS 1 85 

relationship among religions, to trace Christian cer- 
emonies and ideas beyond Christian and Hebrew- 
lines into the vast common of natural religion, so far 
from disturbing my faith, gives me a new and beau- 
tiful testimony to the solidarity of the human race 
and to the actual natural brotherhood of mankind. 
Instead of undermining my faith, these discoveries 
give it a broader and deeper foundation. Instead of 
a past of eighteen or nineteen hundred years merely, 
running up to a written record whose authenticity 
may be assailed, my feet stand upon a past that is 
coeval and coterminous with the entire history of 
man on this planet. I see the sects with hands 
raised every one against its neighbor, — the religions 
at war with the religions. I see that, in the grow- 
ing light of reason, many of the doctrines and cere- 
monies that divide the warring zealots are vanishing 
away as superstitions. But, deep below all their 
differences, amid all vanishing of ancient doctrines, 
I trace the roots of the great beliefs, hopes, trusts, 
aspirations of mankind, down to certain primary 
impulses inherent in the very constitution of human 
nature, and which are what they are because they 
are vital with the creative energy which at that 
point passed over from the Supreme Source of all 
things to finite consciousness. And there they are 
safe. So long as human nature endures and keeps 
its identity, nothing can there disturb them. They 
are beyond the region of doubt ; they are above the 
reach of literary and historical criticism. They may 
be reasoned about, but not reasoned away ; for they 
are involved in the very nature of the reasoning in- 



i86 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



telligence itself. Their forms from age to age may 
change, but in substance they abide. 

And, among these central trusts and beliefs of 
religion, it is not difficult to see what it is that the 
Easter festival has embodied and represented. It 
is man's inextinguishable hope and faith that life is 
superior to death, — that the vital and resuscitating 
power in nature is always stronger than the powers 
of decay and dissolution, and, after every apparent 
defeat, returns in triumph to the field ; that there is 
also that in the life of man which is more than the 
body which disease corrupts and death dissolves, 
more than the dust which the grave can claim or 
hold. These two forms of humanity's confidence in 
the abiding power of Life, the Easter festival has 
clothed in symbol and poetry, addressed to the 
popular imagination. 

Life is more than and superior to death, — that is 
the day's lesson ; the old lesson and the ever new 
lesson. Science, even, is teaching now that death is 
only a phase, a stage, in the continuing and abiding 
process of life ; that there is never any absolute ces- 
sation of power, of vitality, but only change in its 
direction and form. But, before science came, man 
was learning this lesson in the stern school of expe- 
rience, and through the deep instincts of his heart, 
— feeling after the truth, if haply he might find it. 
He saw nature every year threatened with destruc- 
tion. All the outward signs of life vanished from 
her. The winds and storms beat upon her, and her 
beauty fell. Farther and farther each day the 
warmth of the sun departed, and the world grew 



EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS 1 87 

cold, drear, and desolate. Nature seemed dead. 
Snow and ice entombed her. And man must perish 
with her. But anon he saw the sun return. The 
old vital warmth was still there. Nature was not 
dead : she was only sleeping. Day by day, her burial 
shroud was loosened. The icy barrier was removed 
from her sepulchre. And soon she reappeared in all 
her old beauty, promise, and power. The Life-power 
in nature stood revealed before his eyes stronger than 
the Death-power. Man saw, too, his heart's affec- 
tions threatened with destruction. One by one, his 
friends and companions dropped from his side, and 
he saw them no more. His house became to him 
more cold, drear, and desolate than the winter of 
nature. But by and by there awoke in his heart the 
thought that, if the life of outward material nature 
was so dear to the Creative Power that it was thus 
carefully preserved through every semblance of death, 
much more must it be the purpose of the Creative 
Power to preserve this inward human nature, this life 
of heart and mind, wherein man is superior to nature 
and through which come his chief est joys. And so 
came the great hope and belief in immortality, — the 
faith that to the soul's vitality there could be no 
death. It is the most natural and axiomatic of all 
thoughts that, since Life is, Life must be an object 
to be cherished and preserved by the Creative Power 
whence it came. Life, not death, must be the pur- 
pose and aim of the all-pervading energy. 

But not material life alone, nor chiefly. Man has 
learned that great lesson, too, and learned it through 
the severe discipline of experience. It is not his 



i88 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



own material life that is dearest even to him. He 
will surrender his body to the powers of destruction 
rather than abandon a conviction of his mind. He 
will face fire and sword rather than forswear a moral 
principle. He will cast his own body into the jaws 
of death for the sake of an affection of his heart. 
There are grades of life, and it is clearly the prov- 
idential intention that the lower grades should serve 
the higher. When man shall learn to co-operate 
perfectly with this intention, then physical death will 
come to him only as condition of resurrection to 
some higher form of life. Then he will live already 
in the domain of rational thought, in the wholesome 
atmosphere of a good conscience, in the purity of 
his heart's best affections ; and so with him the cor- 
ruptible will have already put on incorruption, and 
the mortal will have put on immortality. 



March 31, 1872. 



XIV. 



OPTIMISM. 

" We know that all things work together for good to them that 
love God." — Rom. viii., 28. 

I suppose that all people who have any thoughts 
about the matter want to believe in the proposition 
announced in this sentence of 'Paul. Perhaps most 
people have moments and seasons when they do 
believe it. And yet, I suppose, to most people 
there come frequent times when they are compelled 
to doubt it, — times, at least, when " things" seem 
so adverse to good, when the apparently untoward 
and evil circumstances that beset human life press 
so heavily, that it does not look so certain that they 
"work together for good." Even if faith come to 
the rescue of the bewildered understanding with the 
assurance that, since infinite Goodness reigns, it 
must be so y nevertheless the question arises, and 
keeps urging itself, how it can be so. Though faith 
may be able to say, We believe that somehow, how- 
ever dark and difficult the problem may look, all the 
ills of life are wrought over into good, yet if reason 
do not see at all into the process, if the logical 
understanding get no clew toward a satisfying solu- 
tion, it is hard to keep back intruding questions and 
to hold that height of certainty wherein the mind 



190 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

with unshaken confidence can affirm that it knows. 
"We know that all things work together for 
good." Do we know it ? To say that we believe it 
must be so, because we believe that the Sovereign 
of the universe is infinitely good, is rather to beg 
the question at issue than to answer it. This is the 
refuge of the baffled mind when, having come to the 
limits of its knowledge, it then throws into the scale 
for its beliefs the weight of its hopes, aspirations, 
and desires. And this refuge is legitimate, provided 
the limits of knowledge are not reached too soon. 
If we have proved the road over which we have 
been travelling to be safe, though many a passage- 
way at the time may have seemed perilous and 
many an ascent insurmountable, we learn to trust 
it to the end. It is natural and right, too, that we 
should accept the veracity of our better aspirations 
and hopes. Until proved the contrary, we may 
legitimately accept their testimony as evidence of 
the real drift and tendency of things in the uni- 
verse. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
says, " Faith is the substance of things hoped for, 
the evidence of things not seen " ; and there is a 
fine truth in this statement, a very full and satisfy- 
ing truth. That ideal which the human soul pos- 
sesses in its higher hopes and desires it instinctively 
trusts as the pledge of a future reality. And reason, 
where it has no adequate grounds for denial, may 
well accept this natural mental bias to trust the 
future for bringing something better than the past, 
as an indication that the immanent energy, which is 
the central life of nature and of man, is moving in 



OPTIMISM 



the direction of good and is overruling evil for the 
promotion of good. 

Still, there are few people who can in all circum- 
stances keep this high ground of faith. Hope is not 
knowledge. Aspiration is not certainty. A vision 
of the future may be trustworthy, but it is not to 
ordinary people so palpable a reality as a present 
fact. Faith may be good evidence for things not 
seen, but the things seen are so close at hand and 
cover so fully the field of vision that they are apt 
to shut out all sight of this evidence. And these 
things that are seen are sometimes so inscrutably 
evil, so impenetrably dark, that, even though the 
soul may believe there is light beyond, yet it cannot 
trace one ray through the thicket, — cannot explain 
how all this evil is to be transmuted into the sub- 
stance of virtue, how it is to be surmounted and put 
to use in the progress of the world. Optimism — 
the belief that the world is the best possible, and 
that every event in it at any particular time is the 
best possible in view of all the circumstances and in 
reference to the ultimate good of the whole — may 
perhaps be a true theory ; and it may be a comfort- 
ing theory to the theologian in his studies, to the 
philosopher in his speculations, to any person in 
moments of serenity, when individually free from 
the pressure of evil conditions. But I suspect that 
this belief does not generally come to comfort those 
who stand most in need of comfort. When the iron 
enters one's own soul, it is not so easy to be an 
optimist. I can hardly conceive it possible that 
those classes of society who are crushed under some 



192 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



great oppression, who are ground down by poverty, 
who are the victims of injustice and tyranny, who 
are forced to live in daily companionship with vice 
and misery ; or those upon whose hopes and careers 
has fallen the blight of constant disappointment and 
failure, upon whose once fair auspices and happy 
home there has come, for instance, the wreck of 
fortune and love which persistent intemperance 
brings in its train; or those — and they may be in 
the most guarded and moral social circles — whose 
hearts are smitten by a sudden blow from some 
villany too black to name, — I can hardly conceive 
that any persons in such conditions can comfort 
themselves with the thought that " all things are the 
best possible," can look up out of their misery, out 
of their sense of humiliation and wrong, and say 
serenely, " Whatever is, is right." No: there are 
ills in our human lot too profound, too heavy, too 
bitter, for any who are under the burden of them to 
have the heart to say, " This is all as it should be ; 
this is what I need ; this is the best thing which 
could possibly have been arranged for me." Could 
such a sentiment find utterance, it would seem, in- 
deed, but solemn mockery, and would betray a want 
of the very feeling from which must come the motive- 
power which is to resist the ills of life and triumph 
over them. If optimism is to be interpreted as 
meaning unconditionally, in the moral as in the 
material universe, that " whatever is, is right," as 
Pope put it in his oft-quoted aphorism, if it mean 
that everything in the world this moment is the best 
thing possible in the eye of infinite Goodness, and 



OPTIMISM 



193 



just as we might conceive infinite Goodness would 
approve and wish it to be, then, to my mind, opti- 
mism is most false both in theory and experience. 

And, thus understood, optimism not only seems to 
me groundless in reason but dangerous to morals. 
I cannot bring myself to say that even all things are 
the best possible, considered with reference to the 
after and ultimate good of all persons; that infinite 
Goodness, though looking to the future, were it to 
keep full control of human conditions and actions, 
would arrange everything, will everything, just as 
we find it to-day. Such a doctrine of optimism ap- 
pears to me to blaspheme infinite Goodness nearly 
as much as did the old dogma of predestinating a 
portion of the human race to eternal misery. To 
suppose that a Being of infinite purity could look 
with complacency upon the assassin's crime, the 
swindler's plot of lying and robbery, the profligate's 
infamous lust and treachery, the cruelties under 
which millions of human beings have been crushed 
by selfish power, because in the future his omni- 
scient eye sees that good will be the issue, — much 
more, to suppose that he has by his own free pur- 
pose and will arranged all these individual acts as 
the -best way of producing this after good, — this is 
to violate the very idea of goodness, and to confound 
all valid distinction between right and wrong. The 
only sense in which I can conceive optimism to be 
acceptable to a rational and morally earnest mind, is 
that the world, as a whole, is the best possible, con- 
sidering that human beings are free, responsible 
actors in it, and help to make it what it at any mo- 



194 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ment is ; that is, that the conditions of human ex- 
istence with regard to physical and moral evil have 
progressed as far as could rationally be expected on 
the plan that man shall be a prime agent in improving 
his own condition. 

Why man was made a responsible agent in ar- 
ranging his own lot and destiny, why he was made 
subject to evil and suffering instead of being neces- 
sitated to a path of rectitude and happiness, is 
another question ; and a question which it may be 
difficult to answer. We can only say that he is not 
thus necessitated, — that the human race, considered 
collectively or individually, has before it the tremen- 
dous task of working its own way up and out from 
evil conditions, and by a rational and virtuous use of 
its own powers achieving its own destiny. And we 
can say, besides, that this seems a higher order of 
being, even with all the liabilities and actualities of 
evil that attach to it, than would be a condition of 
existence in which there should be only a mechani- 
cal adherence to right. At any rate, so things are ; 
and, however better it might seem, if we had all 
been made angels incapable of going astray, it is 
evident that, if we are ever to reach that state, it 
must be by our own effort and struggle. And very 
likely there can be no such thing as conscious angel- 
hood, no such thing as the full development of a 
vital, organic, moral personality, without this effort, 
— without the rational perception and choice of 
truth and right rather than their opposites. In his- 
tory, the fact that man by his own effort has been 
making his lot better, that human virtues have been 



OPTIMISM 



l 9S 



continually blotting out the record of human crimes 
and woes, that truth and justice have triumphed 
over wrong, and right and love have been gradually 
winning supremacy over brute might and cruelty, — 
it is this fact that gives us a right to affirm that 
there is a supreme moral Order ruling in the affairs 
of men. Man has himself overruled his own evil 
doings. Whenever, therefore, it be said that "the 
world is the best possible," and that "all things in 
it are arranged in the best possible way for the ulti- 
mate good of all," we can justly use the optimistic 
assertion only in the sense that it was best that man 
should be left free, or should become responsible, to 
a great extent, for his own condition ; and that being 
left free, though he will bring many evils upon him- 
self, his moral intelligence can be trusted to over- 
come them, and ultimately to make " all things work 
together for good." 

But Heaven forbid that we should suppose that, 
with reference to man's future good, all present 
things are alike available as material ; that one act 
is as good as another ; that a bad man is as good 
for the purpose as a good man ; that wickedness 
is as serviceable as virtue ; that all moral dis- 
tinctions vanish in the presence of some supreme 
transforming spirit that takes all our human con- 
ditions, — the ill and the good, the bitter and the 
sweet, the vicious and the virtuous, — and, putting 
them all together into its crucible, straightway 
brings forth a product which has always the same 
wholesome qualities as a genuine elixir of life ! 
Heaven forbid that, in any absolute, unconditioned 



196 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



sense, we should say, "Whatever is, is right," 
and that we should lose our horror of evil and 
crime, because, possibly, we may see some way in 
which they may, by and by, ages hence perhaps, be 
converted into good ! All things do, indeed, work 
together for good. But they do so, because human 
beings keep clear in their minds the distinction 
between things as they are and things as they 
ought to be, and strive to make the " ought to be " 
actual. They do so, because man sees the differ- 
ence between good and evil, and knows from daily 
observation and experience that there are many 
things in the world that are not right and that will 
not be likely to come right or be transmuted into 
any form of goodness, unless human beings take 
hold and help to do it. " All things work together 
for good," — but not without man as a worker. 

And, if we recur to Paul's words, from which we 
set out, we shall see that they also express es- 
sentially this condition. " All things work together 
for good to them that love God" — in other words, to 
paraphrase the conditional clause, to them who look 
up rather than down ; to* them who seek the truth, 
who espouse right, who strive to know and to do 
the good, who honor virtue, who love the ideal 
of infinite excellence, in which all truth, right, 
beauty, goodness, are conceived to harmonize as 
constituent parts, and who study constantly to copy 
that ideal into character and life. In a word, all 
things work together for good to those who love and 
aim at the good. The spirit of this aspiration and 
effort is the transmuting agency that converts the 



OPTIMISM 



197 



base elements of human error and wickedness into 
the pure coin of virtue. Those to whom this effort 
and aspiration are wanting, those whose look is 
downward, those whose career is only a yielding to 
the cravings of selfish passions, those who find their 
most alluring solicitations in the direction of sensual 
appetite, those who are bound in the chains of 
avarice and animalism, those who have given them- 
selves up to false and vicious propensities, and are 
making little or no struggle against them, — these 
have no right to hope that things will in any 
way work together for their good. The soliciting 
spirit of the eternal Goodness must find some co- 
operating response within the soul, or its effort is in 
vain. Not until that desire for goodness, which 
we cannot suppose is ever wholly crushed out even 
of the worst of men, is somehow, somewhere, 
aroused into a positive purpose and endeavor, so 
that the soul looks and reaches up again, will a man 
find himself possessed of the faculty of making even 
the ills and sorrows of his lot steps in his ladder 
heavenward. 

If we apply these principles to the problems of 
life's evils, we shall find them as true in practice as 
in theory. Look at the history of the human race. 
Humanity has progressed in proportion to the activ- 
ity of its own rational and moral intelligence. The 
work of progress has not been carried on by some 
overruling Power outside and independent of the 
power that resides in the human faculties. It is 
through the human faculties themselves that the 
divine purpose is unfolded, and the destiny designed 



198 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



for man by the Creative Power is gradually achieved. 
Henry Ward Beecher once said, "The elect are 
those who will, the non-elect are those who wont." 
That is the modern interpretation of the Calvinistic 
doctrine of fore-ordination. And it is a true hint 
of the actual historical fact that the eternal Power 
works through human agency, and depends for its 
success, in no small measure, upon the co-operation 
of the human will. Humanity advances and achieves 
its grand triumphs, not through any spirit of fatalis- 
tic philosophy that would fold the hands and piously 
leave everything to God, but through its own prying, 
restless energies. The Hindu Brahmins have taught 
that men get nearest to God when they renounce 
the world and its activities, and indulge in retired 
meditation, cultivating an artificial spiritual clair- 
voyance ; and this sentiment has reappeared to no 
little extent in the Christian Church. But nearer 
the truth was the old Greek legend which repre- 
sented Hercules as mounting to Olympus and be- 
coming a companion of the gods through his gigantic 
labors for the benefit of man on earth. It is true 
that, in the historical progress of the race, the doings 
of evil men are gradually overruled for good, and 
the pernicious result ultimately eliminated from the 
product that permanently remains. But this is be- 
cause there are always some people, many people, 
who are seeking and striving for just that end; 
Herculean hearts and wills seeing clearly the de- 
mands of truth and right, and setting themselves to 
the task of meeting them. And if, as Count de 
Gasparin has well said, "there are moments when 



OPTIMISM 



199 



certain causes rule so absolutely that everything 
serves them, war as well as peace, defeats as well as 
victories, obstacles as well as means," it is because 
of the vast momentum which a moral truth may 
have acquired through the consenting and co-operat- 
ing exertions of many rational wills to push it for- 
ward and give it supremacy. Without this, the 
great moments would never arrive. 

And the same thing is true in our individual ex- 
perience. We overcome personal trials and obsta- 
cles of every kind, we defeat evil both in its causes 
and in its results, when our hearts and wills lay hold 
upon goodness with their whole strength. In this 
alembic of a supreme moral purpose, all experiences 
are dissolved, however hard they may be to bear, — 
temptations, adversities, griefs, old transgressions, — 
and all are converted into materials of future char- 
acter. We then mount by the very obstacles that 
would seem to hinder us. We get visions of heaven 
through the very tears that sorrow wrings from our 
eyes. This is the mood in which all things work 
together for good, the working spirit being in the 
human soul ; and it is in this mood that we come to 
understand, with Paul, how " neither death nor life, 
principalities nor powers, height nor depth, things 
present nor things to come, shall be able to separate 
us from the love of God," — which, to Paul, was 
specially manifest in Christ, but which is equally 
manifest now and throughout the universe. Through 
this human mood of aspiration after goodness and 
active receptivity to it, light streams into the dark- 
est places of human experience. Often, we may see 



200 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



how the evil actually passes into good, — how, under 
the hammer of temptation and trial, the soul may be 
tempered to a finer virtue. We see men and women 
pressed under great burdens of woe, who, instead of 
sinking thereby, rise under the burden to heights of 
wonderful strength and serenity. We see some- 
times sweetness and purity of character growing 
right out of the midst of foul corruption, the ashes 
of sorrow converted into "beauty of holiness," the 
thorns which passion and wrong may have pressed 
upon the brows of their victims to torture them, blos- 
soming into crowns of roses for their immortal glory. 

And with these principles, which seem to be thus 
confirmed both in the aggregate history of the race 
and in individual experience, we may even venture 
to ascend to the larger and more metaphysical prob- 
lem of the existence of evil in the general plan of 
creation. When we contemplate the universe as a 
whole, through all the ages and epochs of its mar- 
vellous .history, whether we view it as believers in 
the theory of its gradual evolution or of its creation 
by special acts, what a scene do we behold ! How 
everywhere into the web of existence are woven 
inextricably the opposing elements of good and 
evil ! Not only in our human life, but in the great 
world-experience of which our human life is a part, 
the light and the shade are everywhere commingled. 
Light and darkness, virtue and vice, beauty and ugli- 
ness, joy and pain, right and might, hope and fear, 
order and violence, love and hate, creation and car- 
nage, life and death, reason and passion, justice and 
wrong, spiritual aspiration and animal appetite, the 



OPTIMISM 



201 



attraction of a mental ideal and the clog and weight 
of physical circumstance, — thus everywhere are the 
world elements matched in fierce and persistent con- 
tention. Verily, from the very beginning of motion 
in the first plastic form that matter assumed in the 
primal origin of things to the latest struggle with 
calamity or temptation that may be going on this 
moment in any human breast, it is a "struggle for 
existence," — a struggle for existence under that law 
which recent science, with a narrower application, 
has styled "the survival of the fittest." What won- 
der if, in viewing this struggle, theologians have felt 
themselves obliged to conceive of an incarnate prin- 
ciple of evil in some Satanic personage, or that phi- 
losophers have affirmed that the world is ruled by 
fate rather than by providence ! 

But science itself, even in this very phrase, " sur- 
vival of the fittest," is beginning, to show us the 
mistake of both theologian and philosopher. For 
what means this " survival of the fittest " ? It 
means, finally, the survival of the worthiest. True, 
in the brute struggle for life, the word " fittest " has 
no moral import. Yet, even among brutes, it is not 
by any means always the strongest or the largest or 
the fiercest that survive. Whole species of animals, 
huger and mightier than any now existing on the 
earth, have become extinct. Intelligence comes in 
to help win the battle. And, among mankind, sav- 
age races, persistent, strong, and fierce in adhering 
to their savage ways, have yielded to the higher 
intelligence and milder manners of civilized men. 
And the cruelest individual passion or most degrad- 



202 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ing personal appetite, though it be the accumulated 
hereditary force of many generations of vicious 
indulgence, has succumbed again and again to the 
pleading voice of conscience and the refining influ- 
ences of goodness. " Survival of the fittest " means 
then, in the end, the survival of the best. It means 
that, in this long struggle for existence among con- 
tending forces of which the universe is the scene, 
the victory is finally on the side of the true, the 
good, the beautiful. It means that right finally gets 
the better of might, justice triumphs over wrong, 
truth disarms error, roughness and uncouthness be- 
come moulded into beauty, and goodness is crowned, 
while vice is enslaved. It means, therefore, that 
the struggle is not merely a blind conflict of blind 
forces, but that in it is an aim ; that it is not simply 
a battle, but a steady drift toward a goal ; not a con- 
test only, but a march. And this aim, this constant 
upward tendency and drift, this advance through the 
conflict, this progress in the process, must have been 
involved in the very first appliance of force from 
which all things have come, or in the primal sub- 
stance which was the seed of the universe. In that 
first act of creation or first step in evolution, not 
only was motion, activity, life, involved, but in it was 
a power that determined the direction of the motion 
and the life. In other words, in that first organific 
impulse, the true and the right were weighted with a 
power (a power inherent in their very nature) suffi- 
cient to enable them to overcome all obstacles, and 
to survive all possible exigencies of the struggle. 
Evil may be the condition of development, the pain 



OPTIMISM 



203 



incident to growth and birth. But good is the sub- 
stance of the developing power itself. More than 
condition or incident, it is that which gives to the 
process impulse, direction, and goal. 

And what is this but to say that there is a Provi- 
dence in the affairs of the world and in the affairs of 
men ? Literally, a pro-videns> — a foreseeing of, and 
a general aiming toward, an end. Not a Providence 
merely vouched for by questionable tradition or rest- 
ing on proof-texts that vanish before rational inquiry, 
but a Providence the existence of which is proved 
by the irrefragable testimony of science. Not the 
kind of Providence which is supposed to intervene 
in the affairs of life in special emergencies, and to 
come at every pleading desire that man may lift to 
the skies for personal relief from some pain or peril, 
but a Providence immovably established in the very 
order, law, and life of the universe itself ; a Provi- 
dence, through all the ages and epochs of the past 
as in the present, ever educing good out of ill, and 
in the human world doing this by the successful 
incarnation of its purpose in the hearts and wills of 
human beings ; a Providence that this moment is 
soliciting every man and woman among us, through 
the knowledge that our minds may gather, through 
the pressure of conscience, and through all the 
gentle sentiments of human sympathy and helpful- 
ness, to become willing instruments for working out 
its beneficent intent. 



November 23, 1873. 



XV. 



MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

" Am I my brother's keeper ? " — Gen. iv., 9. 

"The narrow-minded ask, Is this one of our tribe, or is he a 
stranger ? But, to those who are of a noble disposition, the whole 
world is but one family." — Ancient Hindu. 

A learned author * . says that " Cain, the first 
murderer, was also the first civilizer." And it is 
most probably true, as he and others maintain, that 
the traditional story of the contest between Cain 
and Abel, resulting in the slaughter of the latter, 
instead of being a narrative of a personal strife 
between two brothers, is a relic of a larger contest 
between two clans or classes of men, the shepherds 
and the husbandmen, — between a nomadic tribe, 
subsisting upon flocks and herds, and claiming an 
unlimited right of pasturage, and an agricultural 
tribe, who had begun to till the ground, and who 
claimed, as against the wandering herdsmen, the 
right of property in the soil they had taken to 
cultivate. Of these tribes, Abel is the representa- 
tive of the herdsmen, Cain of the planters ; and the 
conflict, which may have been long, bitter, and 
bloody, was really between primitive barbarism and 
the first impulse to civilization, since civilization 

* Dr. F. H. Hedge, in the Primeval World of Hebrew Tradition. 



MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 205 

begins with acquiring a right of possession to the 
soil. And, in this conflict, civilization, or the class 
of agriculturists represented by Cain, was the con- 
queror; and yet not wholly so, since Cain, though 
victorious in battle and putting Abel to death, is 
represented also as being compelled to flee into 
other lands to pursue his calling : which, it is 
claimed, signifies that the husbandmen, though 
worsting the herdsmen in battle, yet continued to 
be harassed by them, and finally emigrated beyond 
their reach to a new country. 

This interpretation of the old tradition clearly 
turns the tables in favor of Cain. Though not 
necessarily absolving him from guilt, it represents 
him as standing for the interests of civilization and 
progress, and so far relieves him somewhat of the 
stigma of a mere criminal which the tradition has 
always fastened to his name. Yet Cain, though 
representing historically a better cause than Abel, 
may nevertheless have been guilty of gross injustice 
and cruelty in maintaining his cause, just as to-day 
the white settlers on the Western frontier of our 
country, though they are agents in promoting civil- 
ization and are pioneers of a higher mode of society 
and life than the Indian barbarism which they dis- 
place, are yet, in their encroachments on the nomadic 
Indian possessions and habits, guilty of the greatest 
wrongs and outrages, such as must forever disgrace 
the civilization which they represent. We may 
therefore easily enough accept the new rendering 
of this ancient story, with the new dignity it gives 
to the character of Cain, without doing away entirely 



206 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



with that feature of the story which is certainly most 
prominent in the Hebrew narrative, — the sense of 
Cain's guilt. If the story be a mythical representa- 
tion of a primitive contest in society between the 
elements of barbarism and civilization, it none the 
less contains a strong protest from the dawning 
moral sense in man against passion, cruelty, and 
bloodshed. If it gives us a relic of a necessary and 
irrepressible conflict between two different systems 
of society in the early stages of human existence, it 
discloses also that the moral sense very early began 
to predominate in man, since, though Cain may have 
stood historically for the better as well as stronger 
cause, the Hebrew sympathy, nevertheless, went out 
toward Abel, his victim, and Cain, though the "first 
civilizer," was handed down to history, not for that 
glory, but as the first man whose hands were stained 
with his brother's blood. 

We especially may find a double significance, a 
philosophical as well as moral, in that portion of this 
old legend which contains Cain's reply to Jehovah, 
who is represented as looking for Abel. Cain asks, 
as if in protest against the question, " Am I my 
brother's keeper ? " If we look for it, we may find 
for this reply, in the light of history, a certain phil- 
osophical justification. We may conceive it to be an 
utterance of that primitive tendency to individual 
development — to self-assertion and self-maintenance 
and the exercise of personal faculty and power — 
which marks the first stage in the development of 
a race, just as a corresponding assertion of personal 
independence and will marks the first stage in the 



MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 207 



unfolding of human character in a child. The child's 
first instinct is to look out for self: to care for 
others comes later. So, doubtless, the primitive in- 
stinct of the race was to provide for self, — to follow 
individual desires and get individual power, — Abel 
for himself, Cain for himself, each striving to the 
best of his ability for what he individually represents. 
And, looking at the matter from this point of view, 
it may be said that the question put into the mouth 
of Cain signifies this primitive individualism, — this 
necessary selfism, which first sets society in motion. 
It was as if Cain had said : " I am the keeper of my 
own principle, not of Abel's. It is a struggle for 
existence between two fundamental principles of 
society ; between different and irreconcilable modes 
of living ; between nomadic habits, on the one 
hand, and the desire of a fixed habitation and recog- 
nized rights of property in the soil, on the other ; 
between barbarism and civilization. And the strug- 
gle must go on till one or the other principle con- 
quers. If Abel's principle conquers, well : it will 
bring its own consequences. If mine is victorious, 
better, and better fruits. But the two principles can- 
not exchange places nor help each other." We may 
conceive that the alleged answer of Cain in vindica- 
tion of himself had some such philosophical basis as 
this, when we consider the legend as traditionally 
embodying clashing tribal tendencies, and not a mere 
personal quarrel. 

But this is not its deepest nor truest significance. 
No philosophy at the time could reason away the 
moral consciousness of guilt which the answer vainly 



208 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



attempts to cover over and conceal. The words in- 
dicate that primitive man had already conceived and 
was capable of acting upon another social principle 
than self-interest. That single word brother holds 
the germ of a new principle. It points to relations 
between man and man, which grow out of their kin- 
dred blood. It signifies common interests, sympa- 
thies, and aims. It is an index backward to a common 
origin and forward to a common destiny, and is a 
perpetual reminder of common obligations. From it, 
we may unfold all the varied links which bind hu- 
man beings together in the social covenant. The 
impulse to individual activity for individual profit, 
though a mighty agent in civilization, would by itself 
alone never bring civilized society : the very bond of 
society would be unrecognized. It is when individ- 
ual enterprise and welfare are turned to the common 
good, through the recognition of mutual and equal 
obligations between man and man, that society really 
begins. The central significance of the social com- 
pact is reciprocity, neighborly sympathy and equal- 
ity, each for all and all for each, — the individual 
development and achievement harmonizing perfectly 
with the general advancement, and not capable of 
being separated from it. Humanity is so linked 
together that, if one member suffer, all must suffer 
with it, or, if one member rejoice, all must rejoice 
with it. 

And this is the moral significance of this feature 
of the story of Cain which we are now consider- 
ing. It discloses the principle of brotherhood as the 
most indispensable element of human society. Cain's 



MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 20g 

philosophy was utterly helpless to drive away the 
remorse that fell upon his conscience because of the 
crime he had committed against his brother. All 
the time another voice within him was declaring : 
" I am my brother's keeper. We were sent into 
this world to live together, to work together. And 
my brother's blood cries against me from the ground 
till I make atonement for the wrong." The legend 
puts the assertion of brotherhood first into the 
mouth of Jehovah, but the God that spoke was the 
lordly voice of conscience in Cain's own breast. 
If this old story contains under a mythical dress an 
historical relic of some primitive contest between 
barbarism and civilization, it surely contains no less 
the relic of a moral contest between the principle of 
selfish aggrandizement and passion and the dawning 
sentiments of justice and fraternity. Its grand les- 
son is that the principle of fraternity is at the foun- 
dation of human society, and that any violation of 
this principle, any injustice and sin of man against 
his fellow-man, tends to the disorganization and 
destruction of society. Other ancient records be- 
sides the Hebrew bring us the same sentiment as 
that which I quoted from India as a joint text, and 
which reads as a response to Cain's question. 

But this lesson, though set so many thousands 
of years ago, the world has been very slow to learn ; 
and it needs to be reiterated as emphatically to-day 
as when it was first discovered. Let me repeat it. 
Fraternity, brotherhood, mutual justice and helpful- 
ness between man and man, is the bond of society ; 
and any sin committed against this sentiment of 



2IO 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



fraternity is not merely a wrong to some individual, 
but tends at once to disorganize and destroy society 
itself. 

The human race is joined together in a partner- 
ship from which there is no escape, and all the mem- 
bers of society are jointly and severally responsible for 
its moral condition. Wickedness may run a good deal 
farther back for its causes than to the will and pas- 
sions of its individual doer, just as its consequences 
will not stop with his act. Yet the responsibility 
rests somewhere upon individual human hearts and 
wills, though it may be divided among many, and is 
not to be explained away by any philosophy that 
would shift the cause off from man to circumstances, 
to fate, or to God. We are, each and all, our 
brothers' keepers : upon our acts, our characters, our 
sentiments and purposes depends, not only our own 
welfare, but the well-being of all with whom our 
lives anywhere come in contact, and of countless 
others also whom we may never meet, and who are 
even yet unborn. The threads of our lives, what- 
ever their texture, be they coarse or fine, strong or 
weak, beautiful or ugly, are taken up and woven into 
the character of the human race. Whatever grace, 
or purity, or moral firmness and fidelity we have, 
whatever good act we do or habit of heroic virtue we 
cultivate, it goes to enhance the strength and virtue 
of the whole. Whatever moral defect we have, 
whatever corruption, whatever vice, whatever un- 
tamed passion, whatever secret or open sin, it goes 
to make society poor, weak, flimsy, and introduces 
into it elements of disruption and decay. Every 



MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 211 

human being, therefore, is in some sense his 
brother's keeper. Upon the measure of integrity 
possessed by each person depend the average con- 
science and purity of the race. 

And, now, I want to make these propositions clear 
by a few illustrations. Consider, first, the moral 
bearing of the physical unity of the race. The phys- 
ical ties that bind mankind together are very subtile, 
far-reaching, and powerful. We can see them in 
their effects, though we may understand little of 
their method of operation. Very literally is it true, 
as the old Hebrew writer of Exodus said, that " the 
iniquity of the fathers is visited upon the children 
even unto the third and fourth generation." Into 
what wretched conditions of existence vast numbers 
of human beings are born ! What disordered tem- 
peraments and passions, what disease and imbecility, 
what predispositions to vice and crime, are entailed 
in the blood ! We are so connected by the physical 
tie of birth that we must necessarily suffer for one 
another, and not only for one another's sufferings, 
but for one another's sins. And, in the operation of 
this law, the innocent necessarily suffer with the 
guilty. The innocent babe, in whose little life is 
wrapped so many motherly hopes and joys, and in 
whom the moral consciousness has not yet dawned, 
may be cut off by an untimely death, because, 
through the laws of hereditary descent, it may have 
in its veins some drop of tainted blood, the virus of 
which has been handed down from the vices of some 
ancestor we know not how remote. Or, if it live 
and grow up to manhood, there may be suffering 



212 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



from weakness and disease, struggle with fierce 
temptations, and lapses into evil ways, because of a 
physical and mental constitution inherited from the 
same vicious source. A man, apparently well born, 
having fine abilities and a worthy ambition, finds 
himself, perhaps, in early manhood taken captive by 
the demon of intemperance, and all his fair prospects 
blighted for life, because some great-grandfather 
indulged overmuch his grovelling sensual appetite 
for alcoholic stimulus. So, again, the saintliest 
woman that walks the earth, dispensing charity, 
virtue, and moral healing wherever she goes, may 
die of dreadful disease generated in some haunt of 
filth and crime, of which her pure nature hardly 
dreams the existence. And thus it is throughout 
the world. The human race is imperfect, tainted, 
earthy, given largely to animalism, has a good deal 
of bad blood in its veins ; and disease, vice, misery, 
physical and moral infirmity, premature death, men- 
tal atrophy and inertia — all the elements that tend 
to the dissolution of society — inhere in this general 
imperfection. What a terrible social fact — and a 
terribly damning fact against Christian civilization — 
is that which a physician in New York has recently 
brought to light from certain criminal statistics of 
the State, — the tragic story of a pauper girl who, 
some six generations ago, having been left unpro- 
tected to the mercies of society, and falling a victim 
to man's lust, became the ancestress of two hundred 
criminals and as many more idiots, drunkards, lu- 
natics, and paupers ! Verily, the iniquity of the 
fathers is visited upon the children with retributive 



MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 213 

usury ; nor does it stop at " the third and fourth 
generation." 

And, looking at considerations bearing on practi- 
cal motives of conduct, what is there that should be 
more calculated to arouse conscience to a sense of 
the terrific evil .of moral transgression, of its mean- 
ness as well as its wickedness, than the knowledge 
that, long after we have passed away from earth, our 
sins will live on in our posterity to corrupt the very 
fountains of life, and to spread devastation, death, 
and sorrow among the innocent ? What father is 
there who, if he could certainly know that his vice 
is to slay his own son, would not by every moral 
effort in his power stay the malignant force ? Yet 
his vice is most certainly to descend in retribu- 
tive woe upon somebody's child as innocent as his. 
Some life is somewhere to suffer and have its days 
shortened for his guilt. For the vices which any 
man or woman may harbor, under however respect- 
able an exterior, there must be somewhere at some 
time wretchedness, lamentation, disease, and death 
perhaps before the normal time. For every viola- 
tion of the moral law there must be retribution, 
atonement, — not before it is committed (that were 
impossible), but afterwards. And, in this atoning 
retribution, the innocent necessarily suffer with the 
guilty ; not by any arbitrary decree, but because, 
through the law of physical relationship, we are all 
of one race, of one blood, and are so closely and 
variously bound together that no man can either 
live or die to himself alone. 

Yet, over against this dark picture, we can place 



214 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



a brighter one. Virtue is just as accumulative by 
hereditary descent, just as self-generative, as vice. 
Man is not necessarily the slave of circumstance, 
not necessarily in hopeless bondage to hereditary 
evil. Again and again, by sheer inward moral 
power has that chain been broken, and the man, 
once bound, has declared his freedom from all ances- 
tral demons, and taken possession of the domain of 
his own nature. Even persons far advanced in life 
— persons of fifty and sixty years — have sometimes 
broken the sway of confirmed evil habits, and stood 
up again in the dignity of manly power. This moral 
feat is difficult ; it may be rare ; but it is not impos- 
sible. And what may be done by the more hopeful 
process of early training and education in overcom- 
ing evil tendencies inherent in bad birth and sur- 
roundings is matter of record. The societies that 
are removing vagabond children from the streets 
into good homes furnish the proof. The law of 
" selection," of which we are hearing so much in the 
realm of nature, may assuredly be made available 
for the benefit of mankind through human volition. 
Bad blood may be improved. The virus of physical 
and moral disease may eventually be neutralized by 
generations of virtuous living, and pass out of the 
human stock. This is not conjecture, but a state- 
ment that rests on solid facts. And in the teaching 
of such facts is man's hope, here his unfailing in- 
centive to effort. The law by which moral evil 
accumulates upon itself its own natural retribution 
by corrupting the race operates equally for the pres- 
ervation and growth of virtue : with this important 



MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 215 

addendum, that we may believe the primal and eter- 
nal Power to be on the side of virtue. 

Let us consider again this law of mutual social 
responsibility in another aspect more exclusively 
moral, — the joint responsibility of the individual 
members of society for the general moral condition 
and the moral public opinion of the community. 
We cannot justly visit the whole condemnation of 
vice and crime upon those who are publicly repro- 
bated as vicious and criminal. The crime which 
breaks out upon the surface of society, in the low 
haunts of degradation and ignorance, is but the ex- 
ternal appearance of a moral disease which extends 
far back and into very different grades of society. 
The poison shows itself at those weak spots which 
are unprotected by knowledge or unguarded by a 
sense of social respectability, and where the very 
atmosphere is foul with contagious vice ; but it be- 
gins, and continues to be fed, from a very different 
source. It begins with vicious, ungoverned propen- 
sities, wherever found. It is nourished from homes 
and characters that are outwardly reputable. If you 
would read my meaning more clearly, look at that 
cancerous spot in modern society called "the social 
evil." See the women of the class on whom Jesus 
looked with tender compassion, but against whom 
Christian civilization has pronounced the awful 
anathema "abandoned"; and who are abandoned 
of all self-respect, of all true love, of all womanly 
grace and purity, and who are almost abandoned by 
society itself. But are they the sole sharers in this 
social guilt, — they, and the vile creatures, male or 



2l6 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



female, who help them to ply their infamous calling ? 
Or is it, think you, the class of men who are socially 
low, poor, and degraded that support this vice ? 
Alas, no ! The accountability does not stop there : 
it hardly, indeed, begins with either of these classes. 
The poor and degraded have not the necessary finan- 
cial means nor the arts of fascination that the vice 
requires. It is men who have money and can bestow 
gifts, men who have social position and who are out- 
wardly decorous and reputable, that furnish the 
chief sustenance of this great evil ; and it is because 
this class of men, men who help to make public 
opinion and may even be law-makers, are sharers in 
responsibility for the evil, that it is made so difficult 
for the civil law to reach the evil. No : it is not 
the poor creatures whom society calls " abandoned " 
who are the chief sinners in this sin. The evil has 
no such simple solution as that. But all that class of 
men whose ungoverned passions create and sustain 
these abandoned creatures are responsible sharers in 
the crime ; and they may be men whom society, the 
"best society," is receiving with confidence to its 
bosom, and who are proud of their " good standing 
in circles of culture and refinement. Well has it 
been called "the social evil," though the name 
seems to have been chosen delicately to veil the 
vice ; for it is the evil which more than any other, 
perhaps, spreads its roots underneath, and overshad- 
ows with its baleful branches, all grades of social 
condition, and for which society itself is jointly re- 
sponsible. Not infrequently does it break out into 
woful domestic tragedy and bloodshed. But think 



MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 



217 



you that the wretched hands that may hold the mur- 
derous weapon are alone guilty ? Ah ! the blood 
cries out against other hands, — hands that may 
seem to be clean ; hands that yours may take in the 
confidence of business every day, or that, kid-gloved, 
may be welcomed to your parlors. It cries out 
against the loose public opinion which permits to 
men, without great loss of repute, a license of pas- 
sion for which it condemns woman to perpetual in- 
famy. But, however lax be the law of public opin- 
ion, by the stern, unerring laws of nature, society is 
held accountable for this evil, and upon society falls 
the awful retribution for the guilt. One sex cannot 
suffer without the other sex suffering with it. No 
part of society can be victimized without other parts 
feeling the outrage and paying the penalty for it. 
And society never writes the word " abandoned " 
against the character of even one woman, but that 
nature's laws, and the Almighty Power that executes 
its will through them, brand the same word, or a still 
worse moral curse, upon some man's guilty brow. 

This silent partnership in social responsibility may 
be illustrated again by considering the necessary 
conditions of any nation's progress. Look, for in- 
stance, at the history of our own country with refer- 
ence to the institution of slavery and the condition 
of the negro race. It was shown by experience to 
be absolutely impossible for the country to develop 
its fundamental ideas of republican liberty and equal 
justice even for the white race, so long as these prin- 
ciples were violated in respect to the negro. The 
evil reacted upon the slave-owners, and made them 



218 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



irresponsible despots instead of republican citizens. 
It made itself felt throughout the whole country, 
and was an incubus upon the success of the repub- 
lic to just the extent that it was a violation of repub- 
lican principles. Finally, the righteous retribution 
culminated in the war of the rebellion, from which 
there was no safe escape for the nation except by 
granting to the negro the long-denied right to lib- 
erty, and making him a recognized partner in the 
struggle and in the victory. The same chain that 
bound his limbs as a slave fastened him as a mill- 
stone to the nation's neck; and the nation was forced 
to break that chain, in order to free itself from mor- 
tal peril. So it has been since the war, and so it 
must continue to be for years to come : the success, 
prosperity, peace of the country, are inextricably 
bound up with the negro's condition. However 
much any persons may wish it were not so, and may 
be inclined to rue, if not to curse, the day which 
brought the black man into the country, here he is, 
four or five millions strong, making an element that 
will not permit itself to be forgotten nor overlooked 
among the forces that are shaping the nation's des- 
tiny. In a hundred ways is the nation constantly 
warned that it cannot evade the responsibility of 
being the keeper of the black man's rights. His 
destiny is the country's destiny. Leave such a mass 
of population with only partial civil rights, unedu- 
cated, degraded, under the ban of social prejudice, 
with the ballot it may be, but with no knowledge 
how to use it, and the nation is maimed, burdened, 
and hindered in its progress to just the extent of 



MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 21Q 

their degradation. Nor is the evil confined to the 
South, but must be felt to some extent in every part 
of the body politic. The nation cannot go on, and 
leave any part of its citizenship behind. It will be 
held back to just the extent that it leaves any class 
with rights denied, with wrongs unatoned. It will 
be free for progress just in proportion as it guaran- 
tees justice, education, and a fair opportunity to all. 
The prosperity of the nation is the prosperity of its 
members. 

Any of the old countries of Europe might furnish 
us the same example. Look at England. When we 
consider only her aristocratic and educated classes, of 
what prosperity and social progress does she not seem 
capable ? All the resources of wealth, of culture, of 
science, of ancient national inheritance and noble 
blood, are in her hands to wield for social achieve- 
ment and advance. But, clinging to her skirts and 
fastened by ties that cannot be severed, are millions 
of poverty-stricken laborers, an ignorant mass of 
degradation, pauperism, intemperance, animalism ; 
and England, with all her riches, culture, and social 
refinement, finds herself confronting social problems 
the very presentation of which seems to threaten 
the stability of her social order and upon the suc- 
cessful solution of which the perpetuity of her insti- 
tutions depends. It is clear that the nation has 
reached that point where it is decreed by the laws 
of social destiny that the aristocratic and educated 
class can advance no farther by itself, but can only 
progress by lifting up and carrying forward the mass 
of the people. All classes, however separated by 



220 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



artificial lines of distinction, are in reality welded 
together and to a common fate. 

The present angry conflict between capital and 
labor presents another illustration, which I cannot, 
however, unfold at this time. Suffice it to say that 
there can be no solution of this problem except by 
a just practical recognition on both sides of the law 
of mutual responsibility in industrial enterprise. 

And so it is throughout mankind. Across all 
lines of class separation — the lines that may be 
drawn by wealth, by culture, by occupation, by fam- 
ily pedigree and social rank, and even by vice and 
crime — stretch living links of natural kinship and 
those deeper laws of social organization which hold 
firmly all classes together, and bind them to one 
ultimate destiny. By these strong though unseen 
ties, the solidarity of the race is established, and 
every man is made to some extent the keeper of 
every other man's happiness and virtue. 

Does it seem to inveigh against the goodness of 
providential law that there should be this general 
sharing of responsibility, and that ignorance, vice, 
and indolence should thus come as a burden upon 
the good, enlightened, and industrious, hindering 
their progress, and that the retribution of suffering 
for moral transgression should fall upon the inno- 
cent as well as the guilty ? Rather, let me say, as 
the concluding point of the theme, this method dis- 
closes the very pathway through which the great 
providential purpose works to benefit mankind. By 
this law of mutual responsibility or of a common 
imputation of many of the consequences of wrong-' 



MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 221 

doing to innocent and guilty alike, — this law by 
which all classes of society are so affiliated together 
that no man liveth and no man dieth to himself, — it 
is ordained and guaranteed that all parts of the 
human race shall hold together and advance to- 
gether in the path of amelioration and progress ; 
that no portion, however favored, shall get so far 
ahead as to be incapable of leading the rest ; and 
that no portion, however degraded and criminal, 
shall be left so far behind as to be incapable of 
being led. Hereby, the light, knowledge, virtue, 
science, culture, refinement, power, achieved by the 
best portions of the race, are put under tribute to the 
advantage of the poorest and lowest. Nature's laws 
are set solidly against monopolies. Even the seem- 
ingly harsh laws of contagion and disease, implicat- 
ing whole communities in torture and sorrow for one 
man's ignorance or vice, are ministers, stern but 
merciful, to awaken among those who have the 
knowledge and the power an active interest that 
shall set itself to the task of eradicating the error 
and the vice whence such miseries spring. Thus, it 
is irrevocably decreed by the very laws and forces 
of the social organism that the highest portions of 
the race shall raise up the lowest, the most advanced 
draw after them the weak and ignorant, and none be 
left hopelessly and helplessly in the rear to perish of 
their own imbecility. However high any may lift 
their heads into the light of mental and moral power 
and into the clear atmosphere of self-control, their 
feet are planted still on the old common earth 
whence the race has sprung, and where many indi- 



222 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



vidual souls and tribes are still grovelling in the 
degradation of ignorance and animal passion ; and 
from all around sordid hands, which cannot be 
turned aside, are stretched up, clutching for support 
and help. " Give us," they pray, "in our darkness 
of your light, in our despair of your hope, in our 
helplessness of your strong leadership. Hold us by 
the hand, that we sink not, but be lifted up with 
you." And the Divine Providence of nature, through 
these organic ties of the social bond, has decreed 
that those outstretched hands shall be held. 

And, if the hindrance and pain that thus ensue to 
the faithful seem hard, this fact is only the necessary 
reverse of the larger "and brighter fact that the true 
and the strong are to give of their strength to the 
weak, and lead them along to the final blessing of 
all. Once, on a Western railroad, I saw a rapid 
passenger train, to which, for some temporary cause, 
a mixed tram of emigrant and freight cars had been 
attached. There, in the advance, were the elegant 
palace cars, with their refined and comfortable com- 
pany of wealthy travellers ; then came a car or two 
of more ordinary pattern for the less luxuriously in- 
clined ; and then the miserable emigrant cars, with 
their freight of lowliness, poverty, and not a little 
squalor ; while a number of dingy coal-cars brought 
up the rear. Yet all were running together on the 
same track, drawn by the same powerful engine, 
bound for the same goal. So it is with mankind 
in the great world-journey that we are making. All 
classes, grades, and conditions of society are fas- 
tened together in one train, only with this differ- 



MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 223 

ence : that the coupling here is no accidental and 
transient circumstance, but is so insured in the very 
nature of the eternal laws that no part of the mixed 
train of humanity can ever be dissevered and left be- 
hind. And, if any of these life-travellers, complain- 
ing of the delays and accidents of the journey, shall 
presume to ask: "Why should my course be hin- 
dered and disturbed ? Am I my brother's keeper ? " 
the reply comes back from the providential purpose 
inherent in the eternal order of things, " Yes, O 
man, whosoever thou art, thou art thy brother's 
keeper ; and wheresoever on this earth thou stand- 
est, and however proudly thou standest in thy power 
or in thy knowledge or in thy virtue, unless thou 
acknowledgest that primal obligation, the voice of 
thy brother's blood crieth against thee from the 
ground." 



May 3, 1874. 



XVI. 



HEART IN NATURE. 

" I look' for the new Teacher, that shall see the world to be the 
mirror of the soul, shall see the identity of the law of gravitation with 
purity of heart; and shall show that the Ought, that Duty, is one 
thing with Science, with Beauty, and with Joy." — R. W. Emerson. 

A Chinese priest of philosophical temperament, 
who lived in the sixteenth century, in discussing 
the old and ever new problem of the creation of the 
world, represented the beginning of things as a 
crude, chaotic mass of nebulous matter, which, 
through a principle of self-generation, gradually ex- 
panded into the countless beautiful varieties of 
nature and into an infinite system of worlds ; but 
all these forms of nature and this whole infinite 
series of worlds he described as being included 
within one universally diffused and all-pervading, 
ethereal essence which he said was hard to name, 
but which might best be called "Heart." This 
man was a believer in the Buddhist religion ; a 
religion which, more than any other perhaps, has 
perceived and emphasized the evils of human exist- 
ence, and which has been characterized by some 
theological critics — critics, however, who have little 
appreciated the depth of its thought or the prac- 
tical benignity of its mission — as the organization 



HEART IN NATURE 



225 



of human despair. And yet this man, confronting 
this traditional picture of the lot of mankind which 
was the common property of his religious faith, 
and confronting the actual miseries of the men and 
women in the populous communities around him, 
could not complete his conception of the creative 
and sustaining forces of the universe without adding 
something which he could express only by using a 
word that covers the tenderest facts and relations of 
human life. Face to face with the whole vast cata- 
logue of human woes, face to face with his beliefs 
as to the necessary and inherent evil attending all 
finite existence, he yet could say that the universe- 
had a heart, and that this quality of heart was the 
subtile essence or spirit of the whole, embracing, sur- 
rounding, intimately pervading all the parts. 

This attitude of the Chinese philosopher is not 
exceptional. It represents the common attitude of 
humanity in the presence of humanity's ills ; and 
it is for this reason that I bring it here to indicate 
the subject of my discourse this morning, — Heart in 
Nature. Has the universe in the midst of its laws 
and forces any heart ? This is a question which 
many individual minds are asking of themselves 
openly or silently to-day. It is a question which 
humanity has hitherto answered in the affirmative. 
Whatever speculative theologians may have said, 
whatever doubts may have been raised by philos- 
ophy or by science, and however sceptical individual 
observers may have grown as they have watched 
the stern and often afflicting processes of nature, 
humanity as a whole, and through all the varying 



226 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



epochs of its history, has said confidently and said 
emphatically : " The universe has a heart. Some- 
where within it, in spite of all existing evils and 
woes, are the elements of tenderness, of compassion, 
of good will, of love." 

And I know of no more pathetic picture in human 
history than the persistency with which this belief 
in the good intentions of the universe has asserted 
itself against all the pressing facts of evil to which 
man has been subject. See by what ills human 
beings have been buffeted ! They have been assailed 
by floods, by storms, by pestilence, by famine, by 
earthquake, by destructive insects and venomous 
beasts, by every type of disease, by every form 
and hue of suffering. They have been assailed in 
respect to their possessions, their lives, their affec- 
tions, their dearest hopes and endeavors. They 
have won their achievements by a dire struggle 
against conflicting and opposing forces : nay, only 
by constant and bitter struggle have they main- 
tained existence itself. They seem, indeed, to have 
been brought into existence just to contend for life 
and its possessions amid the rough and clashing 
forces of nature, which travel on their ways irre- 
spective of human desires, and deaf and pitiless to 
human entreaties. For more than half of mankind, 
the struggle is terminated by death before even the 
period of manhood is reached ; and over life at every 
age death ever hovers threatening, sparing no house- 
hold, no heart. Yet surrounded by this host of nat- 
ural and inevitable evils, and amid numerous others 
of personal wrong and wretchedness, arising from 



HEART IN NATURE 



227 



man's weakness or inability to cope successfully 
with the conditions of his existence, human nature 
has persisted in believing that all these ills are 
encompassed, penetrated, and overruled by elements 
of sympathy and goodness. Though again and 
again hope and desire may be disappointed, and 
again and again the cry for mercy find no answer, 
and though the inquiry that searches in the dark for 
the clew to the beneficent purpose continues to be 
baffled, yet the persistent faith remains that some- 
where that purpose clearly runs, to bring in some 
way fruition to all good hopes and desires. Even 
when man's heart has been wounded, he has pressed 
the gaping wound against the force that has aimed 
the blow, in mute appeals for sympathy, and has 
continued to comfort himself with the belief that 
behind the hand that struck was a heart that felt. 
My own wounded heart, he says, bleeding and suf- 
fering, bears witness to Heart within the universe. 

Examples of the persistency of this belief in the 
goodness of the universe press upon us from all 
sides. The Hebrews, in their captivity in Babylon, 
suffering persecution, and almost despairing of res- 
toration to their country and to the ancient purity of 
their faith, could yet sing of the "loving-kindness" 
and the "tender mercies" of Jehovah. Year after 
year was their hope deferred, until their heart was 
made sick. Their God did not lead them out of 
their bondage, and yet they steadfastly believed that 
he would ; and no postponement of the grand event 
could shake their confidence in his promise. The 
early Christians were in poverty and distress. They 



228 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



were despised and maltreated, and could reckon 
little success for their cause ; yet they talked of the 
near coming of the kingdom of heaven, and called 
God their father. Their kingdom of heaven did not 
come; no God, the Father, descended to dwell among 
them on a renovated earth ; no Christ reappeared in 
the clouds to bring them deliverance. Yet they 
continued to believe and to hope. The beliefs and 
hopes changed their forms to suit successive dis- 
appointments, but the substance of them remained. 
If the good was not to be found here and now, it 
was to be found in heaven and hereafter. The hope 
of it was good against all failures as to time and 
place. The Asiatic Buddhists regarded life in all 
finite forms as necessarily evil ; yet never was there 
a more vigorous or more humane faith in the exist- 
ence of an ultimate good to be attained by human 
endeavor than these same Buddhists possessed. Over 
against the fact of finite ill, they placed the fact of 
infinite felicity, when the finite and the Infinite 
should become reconciled and be at peace. Epicte- 
tus — and he may be taken as a type of the Greek 
and Roman moralists — had suffered slavery, was 
infirm and poor, knew little of life's outward joys, 
and possessed few of what are ordinarily called 
the bounties and blessings of heaven. Yet could 
he say to his God : " Whatever post or rank Thou 
shalt assign me, I will die a thousand times rather 
than desert it. . . . If Thou shalt send me where I 
cannot live conformably to nature, I will not depart 
unbidden, but upon a recall, as it were sounded by 
Thee. Even then, I do not desert Thee. . . . Though 



HEART IN NATURE 



229 



Zeus set me before mankind poor, powerless, sick ; 
banish me, lead me to prison, — ■ shall I think that he 
hates me ? Heaven forbid ! . . . Nor that he neglects 
me, for he neglects not one of the smallest things ; 
but to exercise me and to make use of me as a 
witness to others." Was there ever a finer ideal 
interpretation of evil facts ? Our old German ances- 
tors believed in a perpetual conflict between good 
and evil powers, not only on this earth, but extend- 
ing throughout the universe and beyond the veil of 
death ; yet their hearts cherished the vision of the 
final victory of good over evil, and of a new earth 
that should be the fair abode of virtue and peace. 
The Persians and other nations who have believed in 
a dualistic division of the powers of the universe 
into divine and satanic have clung to the same hope 
in the ultimate supremacy of the principle of good- 
ness. Even the Christian sects that have believed 
in the eternal perdition of the incorrigibly wicked 
have never put Satan on the supreme throne of the 
universe, and have deftly explained their dogma of 
eternal perdition as a manifestation, not of the 
wrath, not of the vengeance, but of the exceeding 
righteousness of God. None more than they, even 
with that dreadful belief in a bottomless pit of tor- 
merits opening at their feet, have been wont to 
praise the mercy of the Almighty. And, however 
shocking this belief might be to our sense of justice, 
there was, on another side, something sublime in it, 
when it rose to the height of a willingness to be 
forever damned so only God's ineffable justice and 
glory could be maintained. Here was the spirit of 



230 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



old Epictetus again : " I will never forsake Thee, 
never cease to believe in Thee and in Thy goodness, 
even though Thou sendest me far from Thee into 
exile and suffering." "Though Thou slay me, yet 
will I trust Thee." 

People who are even far lower in the scale of civili- 
zation than any I have thus far named, people barbar- 
ous and degraded and idolatrous, people that seem 
almost helpless amid the forces of nature and are on 
the plane of fetichism in religion, — even such peo- 
ple, however crushed they may seem under nature's 
inexorable sway and play of forces, yet manifest a 
faith that, against all appearances, there is a power 
in nature that is protective and benign. They be- 
lieve it is there, if they can only reach it ! And so 
by supplications, sacrifices, and gifts they hope to 
coax it out into light and activity, — turning to it 
after every disappointment and after every new blow 
from nature's malignant powers, with a faith that is 
doomed again probably to disappointment, and yet 
is so pathetically superior to all surface-evidence, to 
the facts of experience even, that it looks right away 
from these, though pressing so close upon it, and 
reaches out wistfully and still believingly for that 
which is "the substance of things hoped for and the 
evidence of things not seen." 

Thus, everywhere and in all conditions has man 
asserted his belief in the essential goodness of the 
universe. He has kissed the rods that have scourged 
him, in faith that they would blossom into blessings. 
He has met every kind of misfortune ; and yet he 
has believed that the ruling powers meant to be kind, 



HEART IN NATURE 



231 



and would bring him good fortune at last. He has 
prayed for help in life's emergencies ; and, though 
the help he asked for has not been given, he never- 
theless continues to pray, and to believe that the 
help would be sent, if it were best that it should be. 
He has put up his appeal for mercy ; and, though the 
mercy has been delayed or has not come at all, he 
affirms his trust in it still, generously believing that 
it has been withheld for good reason. He has seen 
communities swept away by flood or earthquake or 
pestilence, and devout people, in all the agony of 
despair, on bended knees, beseeching heaven that 
the peril might be averted. The peril was not 
averted, the suffering and the destruction came ; 
and yet the afflicted and desolated survivors have 
not ceased to believe in the over-governing Goodness, 
— not ceased to believe in its pity or its power, nor 
to put up their prayers for its aid. He has seen the 
great fact of death, present everywhere on earth, 
among all nations, through all ages, from the begin- 
ning of human existence, mingling its shadows with 
the fact of life, breaking up at some time every 
home, desolating at some time every heart. He has 
seen human beings shrink and crouch before the 
coming terror with eager supplications that it be 
stayed. But it cannot be stayed. It is part of the 
universe of things, part of the drama of existence. 
But do they, therefore, say the universe has no pity, 
no heart ? Rather does this fact of death seem to 
have touched springs of tenderness as no other fact 
in human experience has done. It has drawn people 
together in common sympathy, and driven man to 



232 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



rely on an infinite Love that shall flow into every 
vacancy where the fair form of a human love has 
been removed. 

Whence, then, this apparent solecism in human 
experience? — these hard facts of ill and the unan- 
swered desires and prayers that go with them ? these 
hard facts of calamity, of struggle, of suffering, frus- 
trating the highest aims and wishes of human hearts, 
while human hearts, through all, cling with unfalter- 
ing faith to a Power in the universe greater than our 
hearts, and still believed to be inspired with tender- 
ness and compassion ? 

The solution of this problem that depends upon 
the recognition of a miraculous revelation of Divine 
Goodness, overbalancing all possible forms of evil, 
I leave aside. The religious faith that rests on 
miracle has little standing-room in modern days. 
The miracle presents to the inquirer a greater obsta- 
cle than the faith itself. Nor shall we find the solu- 
tion completely in outward, material nature, — at 
least not in outward nature considered by itself. 
The old arguments of natural theology to prove the 
benevolence of the creating Deity from the objects 
and operations of nature have very much less force 
than they once had. Modern science allows little to 
the argument from design. The great phrase of 
modern science to express the history of nature is 
"struggle for existence, with survival of the fittest" ; 
and, to fit this formula, the argument from design 
must be stated entirely anew. The "design" is 
now seen to be general, not specific, — a broad, gen- 
eral drift and purpose, inclusive of broad and general 



HEART IN NATURE 



233 



results, and not the personal adaptation of force for 
the working out of this or that special end. And 
against nature, on any hypothesis, it is not difficult 
to marshal the facts in the light of modern science, 
so that they shall seem anything but evidence of 
benevolence. John Stuart Mill in his essays on 
Religion, posthumously published, brings against 
nature a most formidable indictment. He says: 
" Next to the greatness of these cosmic forces, the 
quality which most forcibly strikes every one who 
does not avert his eyes from it is their perfect and 
absolute recklessness. They go straight to their 
end, without regarding what or whom they crush on 
the road. ... In sober truth, nearly all the things 
which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to 
one another are nature's performances every day. 
Killing, the most criminal act recognized by human 
laws, nature does once to every being that lives ; 
and, in a large proportion of cases, after protracted 
tortures such as only the greatest monsters whom we 
read of ever purposely inflicted on their living fellow- 
creatures. . . . Nature impales men, breaks them as 
if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild 
beasts, burns them to death, crushes them with 
stones like the first Christian martyr, starves them 
with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them 
by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations, and 
has a hundred of other hideous deaths in reserve, 
such as the ingenious cruelty of a Nabis or a Domi- 
tian never surpassed. . . . She mows down those on 
whose existence hangs the well-being of a whole 
people, perhaps the prospects of the human race for 



234 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



generations to come, with as little compunction as 
those whose death is a relief to themselves or a 
blessing to others. ... A single hurricane destroys 
the hopes of a season ; a flight of locusts or an in- 
undation desolates a district ; a trifling chemical 
change in an edible root starves a million of people. 
The waves of the sea, like banditti, seize and appro- 
priate the wealth of the rich and the little all of the 
poor, with the same accompaniments of stripping, 
wounding, and killing as their human antitypes. 
Everything, in short, which the worst men commit 
either against life or property is perpetrated on 
a larger scale by natural agents." 

We hold our breath at this bold and eloquent 
indictment, while we ask, Where is the Heart in 
such facts ? And the worst of it is, all of the 
alleged facts, taken by themselves, we must admit 
to be true. But this is literally and exactly the 
worst of it : that the facts, taken by themselves ; are 
true. But this is worse than the case of actual 
nature ; for there such facts do not stand by them- 
selves, but are everywhere mingled with facts 
brighter and better. Such marshalling of the evil 
facts of nature may be legitimate in argument 
against the old school of theologians, who culled 
the good facts to prove benevolent design ; but it 
gives no truer picture of nature than did the more 
amiable theologians. The scientific truth lies some- 
where between the two. Nature does not show 
herself all heart, but she shows at least the germs 
of heart. We find in her no complete system of 
benevolence, and benevolence only ; but we find her 



HEART IN NATURE 



235 



forces moving toward benevolence, and benevolence 
all along mingling in their operations. Nature man- 
ifests, besides Mr. Mill's dark list of evil facts, facts 
of felicity, of delight, of satisfaction, of sunshine, 
growth, and blossoming, facts of successful fruition, 
of harmony, beauty, and gladness. And wherever 
exist gladness, beauty, harmony, healthful growth, 
successful achievement, and happiness, there must 
exist in the heart of them some elements of goodness. 
Moreover, the history of nature, traced in the grad- 
ually unfolding activity of the vast cosmic forces 
which seem so reckless and which are so inexorable 
to human entreaty, presents proofs that, amid all 
conflicts, struggles, and retrograding periods, there 
is a steady tendency and aim toward good; and 
whence this tendency and aim but from the fact 
that the element of heart, or of goodness as well as 
intelligence, is inherently mixed in the very sub- 
stance and essence of things from the beginning ? 
But, more than this, nature — outward, material 
nature — does not show. 

Whence, then, we have to ask again, does man get 
his faith, not merely in an element of heart min- 
gling its threads with the dark facts of human woe, 
but in a whole heart, all-comprehending and all- 
pervading, — in a goodness stronger than all the 
powers of evil, shining above all shadows, and infus- 
ing into all forms of decay, destruction, and death 
the mightier forces of life ? 

Whence does man get this faith in universal heart 
but from his own heart, from the human heart ? 
The testimony from nature must be supplemented 



236 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



with the testimony from man, when we ask the 
question, What does the universe teach ? Outward, 
material nature is only a part, and not the highest 
part, of universal nature. In a large sense and in 
a strictly scientific sense, nature includes man. The 
cosmic forces have evolved him no less than the 
earth upon which he dwells and the plants and ani- 
mals that help to sustain his existence. He is the 
culmination and crown of nature. Nature's tenden- 
cies and aims complete themselves in him. Her 
meanings in him stand revealed. By his own heart, 
man discovers that nature has a heart, — a heart that 
must be at least as large as his own, as large as the 
heart of all humanity, — nay, as large as the heart of 
all possible finite races of beings in all worlds. 
There can be nothing in the parts which is not in 
the whole, nothing in the heart of man which is 
not in the heart of Universal Nature. And so, when 
man reckons up the affections, the sympathies, the 
pities, the tendernesses, the charities, the loves, the 
philanthropies, all the emotions which make up that 
moral organ and function of his being which is called 
the Heart, he justly credits them all to the aim of 
Universal Nature. Because he finds them in himself, 
he knows that they must have been in the womb of 
nature before him, and must belong to that power 
which is the living essence and soul of nature, in-soul 
and over-soul of the world, — which escapes all analy- 
sis, all search, hovers always just beyond our finding 
out, but which we know must carry in itself the 
promise and potentiality of all that is. 

In fine, on the principle that whatever is in the 



HEART IN NATURE 



237 



effect must be potentially in the cause, that what- 
ever is in the stream must be somewhere in the 
fountains and sources whence the stream has come, 
it is by looking into his own heart that man attains 
and maintains his faith that there is heart among 
the forces, powers, and movements of Universal 
Nature. If there is heart here, there must be heart 
out there, and everywhere where life is. The col- 
ored sibyl, Sojourner Truth, put the whole logic of 
this thought into her simple, quaint prayer as she 
escaped from bondage : " O God, help me ! If I 
were you, I would help any one in distress." Man 
finds tenderness within. So he says and believes it 
must also be without, in the life of the universe. 
Has he compassion for weakness, sympathies for 
distresses and sorrows, pity for human frailties and 
sins ? Then he knows there must be founts of pity, 
sympathy, compassion, in that life-power, whence 
stream these qualities of mercy into and through his 
nature. Has he the spirit of helpfulness, generosity, 
charity, toward misfortune ? Then, by that token, he 
knows there must be a helpful activity in nature, 
which is working for his welfare and that of all man- 
kind. Does he find human sympathy, when it is at 
its best, patient, unwearying, inexhaustible, going 
out on errands of healing to all places of need, and 
going at the cost of self-denial and self-renunciation, 
that it may carry, if possible, redemption and com- 
fort? Then, behold, he says, a higher than mere 
human love that is pouring itself through these 
channels of philanthropy. Does he know something 
of the watchful love of human fatherhood and moth- 



2 3 8 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



erhood ? Whence comes it, he says, but from the 
fact that there are fatherly and motherly attributes 
in the essence of infinite Life ? 

It is clear, then, why the Hebrews in their cap- 
tivity, why the early Christians in their distresses, 
why the Buddhists in their keen sense of the evils 
of existence, why our Teutonic forefathers in their 
beliefs in a deathly struggle between good and evil 
powers, why Epictetus and the Stoics in their face- 
to-face conflict with life's ills, why barbarian tribes, 
even when seemingly crushed as helpless victims 
under the reckless blows of nature's forces, why 
people everywhere and in all times, under the bur- 
den of the manifold ills that flesh is heir to, have 
yet looked up out of the ills, out of their distresses, 
and from beneath the weight of their burdens, and 
have caught glimpses, or freer vision, of a Power 
able and willing to protect and to save from them 
all, and have sung in faith of his loving-kindness and 
tender mercies, and have clung to him in trust, 
even when scourgings came instead of the hoped-for 
bounties, and have believed, in spite of all, in a 
coming felicity, virtue, and peace. The faith, the 
vision, the trust, the song, have come from the 
Divine Heart within their human hearts. 

And man's own effort to cherish the vision, and 
his faith and joy in following it, help to make the 
vision real. By faithful adherence to the unseen 
ideal, man gradually translates it into visible and 
tangible certainty. By his intelligence, he catches 
the clew to nature's intention, and by his skill can 
mitigate and even prevent many of the dire results 



HEART IN NATURE 



239 



of her blind activity. Man lends to nature eyes that 
she may see her goal, and in his thought and heart 
her own ideal aim is completed and fulfilled. 

" Life loveth life and good : then trust 
What most the spirit would, it must ; 
Deep wishes, in the heart that be, 
Are blossoms of Necessity. 

" A thread of Law runs through thy prayer, 
Stronger than iron cables are ; 
And Love and Longing toward her goal 
Are pilots sweet to guide the Soul." 



November 28, 1875. 



XVII. 



WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF. 

" It is a long time that I have been waiting for myself." 

So said a Persian poet of the tenth century, and 
the sentence comes down to us freighted with the 
pathos of human disappointments and human hopes. 
Like all true poets, the writer spoke not so much 
for his own personal feeling as for a sentiment 
common to human souls. Or, speaking for himself, 
he spoke also for thousands of other souls, of his 
own and every time, and indicated an experience 
which has lost none of the keenness of its edge by 
the lapse of the centuries since he wrote. His 
words do not fail to touch responsive chords of 
mutual understanding as they greet our ears to-day. 
Some of us, doubtless, will find a deeper meaning in 
them than others do ; but to no one of us can they 
be, I think, without significance. They will recall 
to us, from our own experience or observation, pict- 
ures of successive disappointments and failures, of 
a good aimed at just lost, of procrastinating pur- 
poses, of self-reproaches and self-dissatisfaction verg- 
ing toward despair, and yet companion pictures, 
also, of a patient and persistent self-confidence, 
hope, and courage, a pathetic trust still in often 



WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 24I 

broken resolutions and defeated purposes, which are 
ever returning to the field of defeat, and are finally 
more than a match for all failures and despair. An 
anecdote is told of General Grant at the important 
battle of Pittsburg Landing, to this effect. The 
first day was very disastrous to the national army. 
General (then Colonel) McPherson, Grant's chief of 
staff, had been reporting all day one calamity aftei 
another ; and at the close of the day, in summing up 
the condition of things to the commanding general, 
— how our troops had been driven back several 
miles from the positions occupied in the morning, 
and our lines were everywhere broken and in confu- 
sion, and two-thirds of our artillery and great num- 
bers of our infantry had been captured, and our dead 
and wounded were left on the field in the hands of 
the enemy, — McPherson could not conceal his impa- 
tience at his chief's undisturbed serenity, expecting 
some orders for saving the rest of the army by a 
prudent retreat ; and, as he turned away from the 
unbroken silence, he threw back the excited question, 
" And what do you propose to do about it, sir ? " " I 
propose to re-form my lines, and attack the enemy 
at daybreak ; and will he not be astonished to find 
us doing it?" was General Grant's answer. And 
that night the lines were re-formed. At daybreak, 
the attack was made ; and the enemy was astonished. 
Our troops went forward to triumph, and not only 
regained all that had been lost the previous day, but 
won one of the most important victories of the war. 

There are many experiences in our human lives 
of which this anecdote may serve as a rough illus- 



242 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

tration, — experiences of waiting through long sea- 
sons of discouraging disappointment, failure, and 
loss, until, by some happy combination of personal 
power and circumstances, the higher self is evoked 
and takes the leadership, and the long-desired and 
long-sough t-f or object is gained. We often have 
to wait a very long time for ourselves ; but, if we 
patiently wait and faithfully wait, and keep our trust 
and hope in the coming and do well our own part 
toward the coming, the trusted self will surely 
come at last. 

The poet's doctrine, we may observe at first, 
points to an encumbered and divided self, — to a self 
that is compelled to wait and to a self that is waited 
for; to a self, therefore, that can be hindered, be- 
wildered, burdened, fettered, drawn away from its 
true aim, drawn down from the higher light that 
reveals its possible pathway, and to a self that is 
able to surmount all obstacles, thread successfully 
bewildering thickets, cast off burdens or grow the 
stronger and more erect for bearing them, break 
confining fetters, conquer all temptations, and in 
time reach the height of personal attainment the 
shining glory of which, however far off and long 
waited for, no cloud of discouragement has ever been 
dense enough wholly to hide. We may say, indeed, 
it is one self, but with two dominant impulses or at- 
tractions, — a higher and a lower, an upward and 
a downward, a spiritual and a carnal, a mental and 
a njaterial ; one self, but two centres of variant 
forces acting upon it and determining its orbit. 
Yet it is significant that, though man, so long as he 



WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 



243 



has had a history, seems to have been cognizant of 
this duality of tendency in his own nature, he has 
yet been nearly unanimous in calling that part of his 
nature which is responsive to the higher attraction 
— that part of his nature which subordinates mate- 
rial appetite and passion to a mental aim and law — 
his real and true self. The other part, — the seat of 
temptation, hindrance, and failure, the source of 
scores of besetting sins that becloud his vision and 
drag back with such fatal energy upon his steps, — 
though he has been miserably conscious of its suprem- 
acy in his actual experience, he has yet, in char- 
acterizing his own nature, proudly put under his feet, 
and said, "Not this which holds me down to earth, 
but that toward which I lift my eyes, is my real 
self." It is there, in the best conception of self of 
which any individual man is capable, and not in the 
poorest and lowest, that he places his goal. There is 
his aim, his standard, the enthronement of the law 
he owns as binding upon his conduct, the hope of 
what he means to be, — and there he confidently 
waits his own coming; waits, though the iron of 
some bitter present experience may be pressing into 
his soul ; waits, perhaps, through years of weariness 
and hope deferred, through many wanderings in by- 
paths of illusions, through many stumblings and 
fallings and blinding storms, yet waits still in faith- 
ful expectancy. 

And this is essentially the same doctrine that the 
Apostle Paul teaches in those strong and memorable 
passages where he depicts the inner conflict between 
the two forces, — the force of good and the force of 



244 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



evil. Though he finds "the evil" always " present 
with him," so that even "the good that he would, he 
does not, but the evil that he would not, that he 
does," yet he takes the high ground that this evil 
bias and impulse make no part of his true self. 
*'I delight," he says, "in the law of God after the 
inward man ; but I see another law in my members, 
warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me 
into captivity to the law of sin which is in my mem- 
bers. ... So then with the mind I myself serve the 
law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." 
And hence the great apostle, though the conflict 
was by no means over, though many harassed years 
were still before him, though disappointments and 
obstacles were still to be met and conquered, yet 
seemed not to count nor to see any of these things, 
but to look right through and beyond them to the 
time when he could cry, " I have fought a good 
fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the 
faith : henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness." And this Paul, singing this song of 
triumph at the goal reached, was the real Paul. He 
felt all the possibilities of achievement alive and 
throbbing in his being while yet he was toiling on 
the way. And so the song kept singing itself by 
anticipation in his heart, when he was down in the 
valleys, and under the clouds, and within prison 
walls. At the end of the long, devious, burdensome 
way, the battles over between the two laws, — the 
law of his mind and the law of the flesh, — he sees 
himself waiting for himself in triumph, here a 
struggling soldier on the field, there a conqueror 
crowned. 



WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 



245 



The same kind of experience manifests itself in 
various ways in the manifold phases of human life. 
All faithful toilers for truth know what it is to wait 
long for the realization of their highest thought. 
Truth does not flash upon the world full mid-day at 
once ; but it comes by slow gradation of light, build- 
ing itself up ray by ray, like the glory of a sun- 
rise upon the gradually displaced darkness. How 
long the great discoverers and inventors, the great 
scholars, poets, artists, have had to wait and toil, 
and toil and wait again at their tasks, before they 
have been able to reap the fruit of their toil ! At 
first there comes to them a little gleam of light, — 
an idea, a thought, a kind of vision of some truth, — 
which at first may be very slight, and yet impinges 
upon the mind with an intensity that so startles and 
holds attention that it will not move from its lodge- 
ment in the brain. By its very insistence, it creates 
belief in its genuineness, — as if it must needs be 
that what so urgently claims the recognition of an 
observing mind should be a part of the actual forces 
and relations that make the universe what it is. 
Thus, such an idea, thought, or vision of a truth 
becomes a part of the* mental life of the person to 
whom it has come, — something to be cherished, culti- 
vated, followed. It becomes grafted upon the nature 
like a new self, and yet may be only a natural un- 
folding of the old self ; and, if it be large and grand 
enough, it will draw all the faculties and gifts of its 
possessor to its service, and shape for him a career 
and make a destiny. Yet there is hardly one who 
leaps to that destiny at a bound, or travels to the 



246 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



goal of a career without severe toil and many disap- 
pointments on the way. Even if truth has flashed 
upon some minds in an instant, it may have required 
long and arduous effort to find an adequate expres- 
sion for revealing it clearly to the world. Kepler 
seized in a sudden flash of thought the law of the 
planetary orbits, but had to wait years before he 
could work out a mathematical demonstration of it. 

The example of the men who make the great dis- 
coveries in the sciences and arts furnishes many 
moral and religious lessons. If we seek illustra- 
tions of enthusiasm, faith, persistency, patient labor, 
disinterested love of truth, heroic conquest of 
obstacles, splendid constancy to an ideal, we cannot 
find better specimens than are presented in this 
class of men. Here, we find many of the men who 
are the most trusting and patient waiters for self ; 
men who believe so thoroughly in a thought that 
has come to them or a beneficent fact they have 
discovered, and in their power ultimately to make 
such thought or fact popularly accepted, that no 
difficulties can daunt them nor ridicule discourage 
nor opposition terrify. They may have to wait long, 
but they wait in faith that their claim shall yet be 
vindicated. When Columbus found America, he 
found the self he had long waited for at the same 
time. Bernard Palissy gave his whole life for six- 
teen years to the discovery of the decorative enam- 
elling that made his name illustrious. In spite of 
cost, hardship, repeated failure, scoffing from unbe- 
lievers, he toiled on. He reduced himself and 
family to poverty, came almost to the last crust of 



WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 



247 



bread, and finally had to tear up the floor of his 
cottage to get fuel for his all-devouring furnace. 
But this last desperate step of sacrifice was the one 
that brought him to his expected discovery and to 
his long waiting self. So every ardent toiler for 
truth, believing in the reality of the truth sought as 
thoroughly as he believes in his own existence, 
comes so to identify truth with his own existence 
that, when he cries with Archimedes, " I have found 
it ! I have found it ! " he might also cry, " I have 
found myself." 

For the same thing may be said, substantially, of 
those whose interests and labors are directed more 
particularly to other spheres of truth, — philosophi- 
cal, aesthetic, moral, and religious. Immanuel Kant 
was nearly sixty years old before he wrote the 
famous book, the Critique of Pure Reason, which 
gave such a powerful stimulus to thought and made 
a new era in the world of philosophy. For eleven 
years he was writing and rewriting that work, 
hardly knowing during the earlier part of the time 
where he was coming out or at what he was aiming, 
but pressed by a dissatisfaction with all existing 
philosophical systems and feeling within him a 
power to clear a way through their labyrinth of 
errors, if he could only succeed in faithfully unfold- 
ing and following that clew of thought which had 
vaguely but deeply impressed itself upon his con- 
sciousness as holding the mystery. And so through 
all these years he studied and worked at this 
thought, wrote and rewrote it, went round and 
through it and into all its consequences, and thus 



248 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



felt his way slowly and patiently along, but ever 
more confidently and clearly, until the New Philos- 
ophy stood in his mind and before the world in all 
its logical completeness, symmetry, and strength. 
Nor, previous to this time, had he shown any 
marked metaphysical ability, but only, as it were, 
the germ, struggling to unfold into the light but 
never quite succeeding, of metaphysical aspiration. 
He had tried theology, preaching, the physical 
sciences, mathematics, lectured in his university on 
anthropology, the theory of teaching, natural law, 
physical geography, and various other themes, show- 
ing the versatility of his mind and the breadth of 
his knowledge, and except in preaching, where he 
failed, meeting with a reasonable and constantly 
growing success ; yet, in all this work and through 
all these years, that which was his deepest thought 
and yearning was not satisfied, was indeed hardly 
touched, and he did not show himself for the great 
man he was. He had not yet found his real self. 
For that supreme hour he waited — waited at hard 
work and small pay, never going in all his life more 
than forty miles away from his native town — for 
nearly sixty years ; waited till the yearning within 
him grew into a passion, and the passion cleared 
the way for thought, and the thought clothed itself 
in masterly forms of logic and went forth to the 
world in books, — in books that revolutionized the 
philosophical thinking of Germany and will live in 
the mental life of mankind till the latest time. He 
waited long ; but the deep, trustworthy, genuine self 
came at last. 



WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 



249 



Men of a different stamp of mind — poets, painters, 
sculptors, musical composers — are quite generally 
thought to do their work and to rise to their full 
measure of greatness by a sudden influx of power, 
by inspiration; and this is sometimes the case. 
Yet how often the moment of inspiration may have 
to be long waited for ! The soul that is gifted with 
artistic genius has many a dream before the thoughts 
that aspire and burn within are able to shape them- 
selves into solid artistic form. Not till the moment 
comes when the conditions of the sensitive inner 
organism and the conditions of outward circum- 
stance are both attuned in rhythmic unity with the 
striving creative spirit within is that spirit able to 
manifest itself in the reality of art. And this is a 
moment that may be long deferred, — a moment that 
does not occur in every hour nor even in every year, 
and that to some souls of even the finest gifts only 
comes in perfection once, twice, or thrice perhaps 
in a lifetime. Such souls, therefore, though con- 
scious of the artist's power within them, may have 
to wait through long, arid, and laborious years for 
the hour when the inner chaos of aspiration, impulse, 
and thought can shape itself cosmically into " a 
thing of beauty." Milton proved himself to have 
a poet's genius in his early years, and even then had 
thoughts of some high epic theme which should 
fully test his strength. But the civil commotions, 
the revolutions and wars in England, intervened ; 
and for twenty years he was forced " to lay aside 
his singing robes," and appear as a champion of 
human liberty in political and social polemics and 



250 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



in practical offices for the State. He, too, was 
almost sixty years old before he found the poetic self 
so long waited for. Not till after many bitter expe- 
riences of calamity and pain, of political revolution 
and counter-revolution, of disappointment and blight 
to his affections, of assiduous and heroic labors in 
a hopeless cause, — not till after he had lived to see 
the political principles he had so openly and bravely 
espoused thoroughly defeated and repudiated in Eng- 
land, and he himself was pursued with obloquy and 
no public service was permitted him, and blindness 
had closed his vision to all outward light, — not till 
then did the inward poetic vision of his earlier years 
come back and shape itself into the poem that has 
given him an immortality of fame. Michel Angelo 
left, perhaps, at death more unrivalled products of 
his genius than any other artist the world has 
known. Yet his unfinished works were more than 
his finished ; and some of the former show concep- 
tions with which his mind had labored and which 
had come to him, doubtless, in the highest moments 
of his thought, but which his hand had not found 
itself adequate to put into color or stone. Magnifi- 
cent as were his achievements and crowded with 
labor as was his long life, death found him at eighty- 
eight with a power still within him seemingly con- 
scious that it had not yet fully uttered itself and 
must wait for more facile organs for executing its 
behests. 

Or look at a very different kind of career, — at the 
life of any of the great religious teachers and reform- 
ers ; at that of Jesus, for instance, as most familiar 



WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 



251 



to us. It is evident that we have in the New Testa- 
ment but a small part of the real biography of Jesus. 
We have a sketch — somewhat confused, and mixed, 
without doubt, to a considerable extent with legend, 
but more or less authentic — of the two or three years 
that constituted the public part of his life. Of all 
the thirty years that preceded the brief time of his 
public mission, we have only the fewest possible 
hints. But these hints indicate what we might nat- 
urally suppose would have been the case : that Jesus 
did not step at once, by the light of a sudden out- 
burst of revelation, upon his great public career, but 
that through many years the thought, the summons, 
had been lying hidden in his mind and he had been 
brooding upon it, — in the closet, at his carpenter's 
bench, in the synagogue, and by his mother's side at 
home. It was there, in his young soul, when the 
boy drew apart from his father and mother and went 
back to ask questions of the rabbis in the temple. 
It was there, — this brooding question of his destiny, 
this haunting vision of what he might become and 
do for the good of his people, this consciousness of 
a possible spiritual messiahship which might in his 
person fulfil the expectations and yearnings of his 
race, — it was there when he went to be taught of 
John the Baptist and to be baptized by him ; there, 
too, when he went into the desert, apart from all 
human kind, after the manner of a hermit, — for self- 
communion, for it was the impulse that drove him 
thither ; and it was there through all the doubts, 
darkness, and tempting suggestions of that season 
of solitude, confidently abiding its time and awaiting 



252 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



its triumph. It was not till after all these years of 
waiting, these trials and self-searchings, that even 
Jesus found himself and his mission. 

Now, the lives of these great workers — these 
prophets, seers, artists, sages, who make so large a 
part of human history — only present in larger and 
finer picture, in more effective grouping and richer 
beauty, elements of mental and moral life which are 
to some degree the possession of all of us. There 
is one law of growth, of progress, of accomplishment 
and power, that runs through the whole family of man- 
kind. " First the blade, then the ear, then the full 
corn in the ear," — that is the law for man as well as 
nature. And between the time when the blade first 
appears, a little streak of living green, above the 
ground, and the time when the full sheaves, ripened, 
are borne home, there may be long seasons of 
drouth or wet, of burning heat or killing frost, when 
the powers of life are tested to the utmost, and even 
hope is only kept alive by faith in the great law 
which brings seed-time and harvest in their order, 
and never fails. Whether a man possess one talent 
or ten, the law for use and increase is the same. 
There is the same slow process of unfolding, the 
same liableness to disappointed hopes, the same sub- 
jection to hindering conditions, the same waiting 
expectancy that the heart's deepest and most conse- 
crated purpose shall yet emerge from all impedi- 
ments, free and triumphant. We may even say that 
the highest thought or purpose of the universe itself 
did not reveal itself at once full-grown and full fruit, 
but ripened slowly. When we see through what in- 



WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 



253 



calculably long processes of preparation the material 
world, with its vast variety of creatures, was passing, 
to make ready for the advent of man on this planet, — 
by what a devious pathway of struggle, of tentative 
efforts, of conflicts of force against force, nature 
passed before man emerged as the consummate prod- 
uct of the whole, — we may say indeed, and say it 
with all reverence, that even infinite Being waited 
long for himself ; waited long and wrought patiently 
for the coming of a finite form so organized that his 
own attributes and purpose might be self-manifest 
therein. 

And we are offspring of that Being ; and as he 
worketh and waiteth for himself, reacheth not his 
sublimest forms of revelation at once, but weaveth 
by degrees the garment of glory by which he is 
seen, so must we work and wait for the highest rev- 
elation of ourselves, — expecting to see our cherished 
hope often deferred, but never to see it conquered ; 
doing our best with present conditions and opportu- 
nities, but — or therefore we might rather say — look- 
ing confidently to the future to bring us to some- 
thing better than any past or present has ever 
afforded. In one form or another, it is the destined 
lot of every human being to wait for himself. Our 
duty is here, at the post of present responsibility, of 
present joy, sorrow, temptation, or trial ; and here, 
with various degrees of faithfulness or unfaithful- 
ness, we are doing or neglecting to do the require- 
ment of the hour. But, whether doing or neglecting 
to do, there is no one of us whose heart's ideal is 
not yonder, away ahead of us, awaiting our tardy 
coming 



254 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



The waiting ideal perhaps is mental, or perhaps it 
is moral. It may be a career of which we have had 
some youthful vision, but which, from outward cir- 
cumstance or inward infirmity of purpose, we have 
hitherto failed to attain. It may be some form of 
unsatisfied affections, leaving a vacancy and a yearn- 
ing not yet filled in the heart. It may be some 
beckoning path of philanthropy, once enchanting our 
eyes, but not yet offering the looked-for opportunity 
or summoning the needed self-consecration which 
makes opportunity. Or it may be some high attain- 
ment of character, some inward self-conquest, some 
decisive triumph over a strong and degrading temp- 
tation, — a triumph which will set our faculties free 
for the good service of which we are conscious they 
are capable, but a triumph which is yet delayed by 
our own halting purposes and treacherous passions. 
In whatever form the waiting, unattained ideal ap- 
pear, it presents the same pathos of contrast between 
a self that has failed and a self that still hopes ; be- 
tween purposes, visions, and aspirations which have 
hitherto been checked and frustrated and an inner 
sanctuary of faith, yearning, and courage which will 
not yield to despair nor death, but which look across 
the grave of every worsted and down-stricken reso- 
lution with eyes that behold another self, and that 
the real self, in the resurrection robes of victory. 
Even the most degraded victim of vicious courses 
does not lose all hope in a better fortune to come. 
He, too, has moments of some purer aspiration and 
thought, — moments when down into his darkness 
and wretchedness there streams a ray of the great 



WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 



255 



Light which fills the heavens and overspreads the 
world, and toward which he can but lift his eyes in 
earnest longing. In that moment, "he comes to 
himself " ; and, in coming to himself, he turns again 
toward father and mother and home. In the very 
act of lifting his eyes to the Light, he greets his 
better self, and in the radiance of that upper glory 
sees himself as he yet may be. 

So with us all. Whatever may be our lot, what- 
ever the form of our longed-for ideal, whatever 
hindrances and delays may beset our course, and 
however long and burdensome may still seem the 
unfinished way before us, if we are but faithful to 
present light, to to-day's opportunity and duty, 
there is a better self waiting for us in triumph at 
the end. In that which waits there is a Divinity 
that appeals invincibly to a divine purpose and hope 
in that which is waited for, and there is no power 
in the universe that can prevent the coming 
together of this cause and this consequence. The 
waiting may be long, the earthly pilgrimage may 
not end it ; but by and by, if not on earth, then in 
some celestial morning, the soul may wake to a 
surprise of felicity, — perhaps -not that dreamed of, 
but something greater and better than that, like a 
clear, calm sunrise after a starless and tempestuous 
night. 



December 10, 1876. 



XVIII. 



THE SILENT REVELATION. 

" Does heaven speak ? The four seasons pursue their courses, 
and all things are being continually produced ; but does heaven say 
anything ? " — Confucius. 

" They have no speech nor language, and their voice is not heard; 
yet their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to 
the end of the world." — Hebrew Psalm. 

These fine words, in their different ways, from 
Hebrew and Chinese Scripture, utter essentially the 
same thought, the Silentness of Nature s Revelations ; 
and it is to this thought and its lessons that I 
wish to call attention this morning. 

Nature is ever active, ever at work, ever pro- 
ducing the grandest results ; yet she never utters a 
syllable of her purpose, never whispers in advance 
her intent to any curious ear. In silence are her 
tasks achieved. All her activities have a profound 
significance, yet not until those activities have 
brought forth their completed results is their mean- 
ing disclosed. She reveals herself, not in speech, 
but in deeds ; tells what she means to do only 
by what she has done ; assures us by the character 
of her achievements, not by the eloquence of her 
promises. True, her work goes on not in absolute 
silence. Sound of all kinds accompanies it. She 



THE SILENT REVELATION 



257 



shouts, she sings, she sighs. She thunders in the 
tempest, roars and moans in the ocean, whistles 
in the wind, chirps in the insect, becomes musical 
in the throat of the bird and the voice of man. 
She shrieks from pain and makes melody for joy. 
Yet she articulates nothing. She is dumb and 
silent, so far as revealing her thought and purpose 
by intelligible language is concerned. Though her 
sound has gone out to the ends of the world, yet 
she has no speech nor language, and her voice is 
not heard. The sounds are incidents of her work, 
but not conditions of revelation. They are them- 
selves a part of the mystery to be revealed, and are 
only understood when the whole intent is made 
evident in the finished product. The inanimate 
forces make their various noise, the brutes cry, 
man speaks ; but heaven is silent. The finite forms 
of earthly force utter their voice as if striving to 
phrase their meaning ; but heaven, the infinite 
Power, says nothing. In silence it does its work, 
and leaves its work to speak for itself. 

The thing done is Nature's revelation, and its 
significance is disclosed only by the interpreting 
mind that has observed the process. The morning 
stars never sang together to reveal the harmonies 
of their movements ; but the song came from the 
musical soul of man, who watched these silent 
orbs of heaven until the order and rhythm of their 
movements were translated for him into melody. 
The seasons, as they come and go, say nothing of 
what they mean to do. It is only by what they 
have done, for years and generations and ages past, 



258 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



that we know what is in their heart to do this 
coming year. Look at the forces which, in any 
year, build up the glory of the summer. Not a word 
do they utter of their intent, not a syllable lisp of 
the mighty things they mean to do. The invisible 
powers, as they began to stir around us again last 
spring, did not go to loudly boasting : " Now see 
what great things we will do ! We will carpet the 
earth through all these northern zones with green ; 
we will dress the trees in gorgeous robes ; we will 
bring flowers, rich with all hues, to plant and shrub ; 
and fruit that shall follow in its turn, to bless man 
and beast." But in silence and patience and little 
by little, the minute, unseen forces went to their 
work, not uttering a boast or a word of what they 
were doing, until the glory and the beauty were 
spread all around us in a living revelation to eye 
and heart. No voice, no language, yet has their 
line, indeed, gone out to all the earth. Had that 
been the first time that any human eyes had gazed 
on such a phenomenon, it would have been to us 
a miracle. We should not have had the slightest 
idea of its purport or intended result, and in vain 
should we have pleaded with heaven to utter any 
word for interpreting the meaning of the miracle. 
Heaven would have been as silent as the forces 
themselves. But, though no miracle, the wonder 
of the phenomenon is none the less ; and the mean- 
ing of it has been revealed only by the silent 
faithfulness of the forces to their appointed tasks 
through many generations and ages of human 
experience. Only by what again and again they 



THE SILENT REVELATION 



259 



have done, do we have faith in what they are 
doing and will do at any present season. 

Or look back farther into Nature's laboratories. 
When the heavens were forming into firmaments 
and worlds ; when the chaotic masses of vapor were 
concentrating into fluids, and the fluids into solids ; 
when the processes were going on by which life 
gradually appeared on these worlds, and the life 
diverged into manifold species, and these species 
on our earth prefigured and prepared the way for 
man, — through all the vast processes, extending 
through periods of time which no mathematics can 
compute nor imagination grasp, — Nature uttered no 
prophetic voice to disclose her purpose. Her forces 
labored in silence at their great secret. Could any 
listening ear have been there, it would have detected 
not the faintest whisper of her meaning. Not from 
the heaven above or the earth beneath was anything 
said. There was only something doing. And it 
was not until the thing was done, not until man 
appeared, and not until he had been on the earth 
a hundred thousand years or more, — not, in truth, 
until this century in which we are living, when man 
has turned up the strata of the earth and learned 
the. science of its creation, and studied the forces 
of the heavens through his telescope and the life 
of lands and seas through his microscope, — not until 
now has it been discovered that these silent forces 
all along carried the secret in their bosom. They 
carried the secret, but did not tell it. All along 
they meant something, and meant probably just that 
which has come to pass. But they did not tell what 



260 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



they meant until the thing appeared to speak for 
itself. 

But it is to be noted next that, though Nature 
has no voice and utters no articulate prophecies 
concerning her intentions, she yet does disclose her 
character, does reveal herself. As has already been 
said, she reveals herself in doing. Silent, she yet 
speaks. Could we suppose ourselves to meet her 
for the first time, to our bewildered and even agon- 
izing petitions for some word of light as to her 
future relations to us, she would be dumb. Only 
by a silent gesture would she bid us wait and see. 
But knowing her as we do by our own familiar 
experience of her actions, and by the aggregate 
inherited experience of unnumbered generations of 
our ancestors, she speaks to us through all that 
gathered knowledge. All her past actions, so dumb 
while they were in process of performance, now 
have tongues that speak to us clearly of her present 
intentions and her future results. We know her, 
and can trust her almost better than ourselves. No 
life-long friend, beloved, leaned upon at our side, 
is more thoroughly known or a surer reliance. Even 
the dependence on impartial parental love is not 
more sure than the confidence with which we cling 
to the hand of our silent mother Nature, — the 
mother who never spoke one word of promise to 
our ears, but whom we know by her faithfulness to 
all the generations of men. Through this accumu- 
lating experience, this aggregate knowledge of the 
human race, drawn from daily life with her, is 
Nature revealed. By what she did yesterday and 



THE SILENT REVELATION 



26l 



the day before, and through all the yesterdays, do 
we read her intentions for to-day and to-morrow and 
the days and years thereafter. And, thus knowing 
her, we know her not only as power, but as power 
that works toward order, method, harmony, beauty, 
use. We know that her forces work with such con- 
stancy and with such regularity of tension toward 
a definite result that we call her operations laws. 
To them, we know that human law must bend and 
human power be subservient. And, if by any means 
any of her methods which we name laws can be 
evaded or abrogated, it is only by calling into ser- 
vice some other of her forces that is for that time 
and place superior, or setting into operation another 
law. Nothing is more clearly known in the universe 
than that Nature is a law-abiding power, — that she 
is moved by an impulse that is not reckless, not 
chance, not whim, not caprice, but an impulse that 
aims in a definite direction and for a definite result. 
Whatever apparent exceptions there may be, human 
experience has yet learned that her aims may be 
trusted, her forces confided in. The whole stability 
of society depends upon this trust, — that what Nat- 
ure has been and done she will continue to be and 
do. All this common experience teaches. 

But science shows more. Science shows that, 
along with this law-abidingness, this constancy, there 
is an order that means progress, advance, unity of 
plan, unfoldment of purpose, growth into ever finer 
symmetry of proportion and beauty of form. Deep 
within the beauty which all eyes see there is 
advance to a higher idea of beauty. Deep within 



262 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



the movement of forces which all minds can com- 
prehend there is the harmonious unfoldment of a 
vast cosmic plan which has become revealed only 
to the eye of scientific intelligence, by which these 
forces are seen to be self-improving and self-regen- 
erating forces : so that Nature, when we look upon 
her mighty periods of activity, has been advancing 
upon her own work, making the bad good, and the 
good better, as if aiming at a best. Thus, though 
working in silence, does Nature make her revela- 
tions and win our trust. 

And now I want to draw into some simple and 
brief shape some of the moral and spiritual lessons 
of the theme. 

The first lesson that would naturally suggest 
itself lies in the parallelism which might be drawn 
between this history of Nature and the history of 
the human race, illustrating how the great human 
exhibitions of power, how the great epochs that 
have actually stood in history for the revelation of 
new principles, and how even those epochs that 
have been called special eras of religious revelation, 
have rather advanced by the unseen strength of 
silently operating forces than by any sudden inter- 
vention of marvellous power from the heavens or 
even noisy demonstration of human speech. Not 
until the epochs have come and actually made their 
mark is humanity able to read their full meaning. 

Jesus and his disciples little thought, I suppose, 
what was in the bosom of that one idea which they 
preached with such persistency, "the coming of 
the kingdom of God." Their business was to plant 



THE SILENT REVELATION 263 

the idea. But, concerning the forces by which it 
was to grow and spread and assimilate to itself 
other ideas and unfold from itself things which they 
never dreamed of being in it, they had no responsi- 
bility nor obligation. The speech was small, consid- 
ering the result that came, and does not account 
for it. The important sentences of the Sermon on 
the Mount can be found piecemeal in the sayings 
of Hebrew rabbis before Jesus. The doctrine of 
love to God and Man was the sum and substance 
of the Jewish religion. Jew and Persian alike had 
looked for a Messiah. Neo-Platonists and Platoniz- 
ing Jews were inculcating a doctrine of the Logos, 
or Divine Word, seed of a new dogma of incarna- 
tion, the development of which had such a mighty 
influence in shaping Christian theology. Thus, 
silently, in many directions and under many soils, 
were the seeds of the new era germinating ; and 
the era had come and passed before people knew 
that it had come enough to name and to reckon 
back to it. The new revelation was rather the 
aggregate character of all that had been done than 
any special speech. It was the new growth, the 
new life, of the manifold silent forces that were 
operating in the human communities that made up 
the Roman Empire eighteen and nineteen centu- 
ries ago. 

So, again, the first movers in the Protestant 
Reformation little dreamed of all that their acts 
meant. It is hard, indeed, to find the first movers, 
so inextinguishably does the religious movement 
shade off into an intellectual and political one. But 



264 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



not even did Luther and his brave compeers fore- 
see all that was to come from their doctrine of 
private judgment as against the voice of the priest 
and the Church. Perhaps they would have shrunk 
from it, if they had. But it was not theirs to fore- 
see nor to proclaim the result. It was theirs only 
to do the duty of their own hour. Within their 
duty, concealed in the heart of their deeds, other 
forces were working in silence, with other meaning 
and for greater results. With the results, the reve- 
lation of the meaning of the Protestant reform has 
come ; but this revelation could not be made nor 
understood then. It was not even outwardly proph- 
esied, though Luther and his helpers were of the 
type of prophets. The genuine prophet, perhaps, 
never knows that he prophesies. The prophecy is 
uttered through him more by his entire character 
and attitude than by his spoken message, and only 
when the fulfilment of it comes is its meaning 
revealed. Thus it was also in the birth and growth 
of our own nation. The processes that finally ulti- 
mated in a national consciousness and power among 
the American colonies were of long duration, and 
were silently operating through many minds that 
spoke no public word and little dreamed whither 
they were tending. Separation from Great Britain 
was a thought at first too daring to be broached. 

And so, in general, in human history as in the 
history of Nature : it is by the faithfulness of the 
unseen and silent forces to certain appointed tasks 
of the hour that the great advances are made, and 
the inner meaning of the forces that thus work 



THE SILENT REVELATION 



265 



through nature and through man is revealed. Not 
so much by any uttered words in behalf of righteous- 
ness, though spoken never so eloquently by prophet 
or martyr, as by the silent grip with which the 
masses of civilized mankind adhere to truth and 
virtue, is the stability of society assured. There are 
principles of mental and moral intelligence which 
have come to have the same constancy in the world 
of mankind as the laws of physical force in the 
world of matter, and upon which we rely with the 
same security. They may never have been spoken 
from the heavens, they may not even have been 
intuitive endowments of the human mind when man 
first made his appearance on the earth ; but, as 
now seems most likely, they may have been gradu- 
ally and slowly evolved through the various disci- 
pline of human and ante-human experience, and 
may be mingled with human infirmity and error ; 
yet deeper than aught else in man's nature they 
declare the purport and destiny of his being. They 
are the silent witnesses, which, growing clearer and 
clearer with man's historic advance, interpret for 
him all other revelations, and 

" Which, be they what they may, 
Are yet the fountain light of all our day, 
Are yet a master light of all our seeing." 

One is tempted to inculcate as another lesson of 
the theme more reliance on the silent working of 
moral forces in the amelioration of human society. 
Certainly, when we regard the incessant speech- 
making that is going on among men, the immeas- 



266 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



urable quantity of words that, through the living 
voice or the printed page, one portion of mankind 
is uttering for the benefit or entertainment of 
another portion, and when we regard the tumult, 
tug, and tussle of it all, one may be pardoned if he 
sometimes longs for the mythical half-hour of 
silence that is said to have occurred in heaven at 
the opening of creation's drama. And, seriously, it 
may be asked whether, in schemes of education and 
of social reform and philanthropy, we are not in 
danger of relying too much on talk, while we lose 
sight of the silent influence of character and the 
potency of quiet deeds. Whatever may be said of 
the power of words and of the influence exerted by 
a great master of speech, the men who do rather 
than the men who say are yet humanity's leaders. 
The resolute act is stronger than the eloquent 
speech. This, of course, is not to say that speech 
has not its proper place and service, nor that any 
great social work is likely to be done without great 
and earnest words being somewhere spoken in its 
behalf. Much less is it to inculcate any fatal list- 
lessness to calls for moral and philanthropic service, 
and a passive trust that the work will somehow be 
done without our aid. I have no sympathy with 
that merely dilettante interest in reform which 
professes to believe that things will somehow come 
right of themselves, while human beings lie back 
at ease, and look on. Rather is it to appeal for 
more aid by acts that I cast suspicion upon the easy 
mood of talk. Talk that has not originated in silent 
thought, and will not bear the test of silent thought, 



THE SILENT REVELATION 



267 



is worse than weak. And so I think that public 
talkers (and private, too) need often to recur to silent 
meditation to recruit their strength. If some of us 
never came out of the silence with public discourse, 
the world might be no loser. But in the silence of 
private meditation have the great thoughts been 
born that have moved the world. A master speaker 
may stir a listening mind to some heroic resolution. 
But the heroic resolution that is made under the 
mastering silence of a noble thought that has taken 
possession of the mind is more likely to remain as 
an abiding power in the life. " While I was mus- 
ing," says the Hebrew Psalm, "the fire burned." 
Meditation no less than speech may kindle zeal, 
and is necessary for sustenance to moral strength. 
Channing once said, "There is no eloquence like 
the deep silence of a crowd." I used to prize the 
silence of the Quaker meeting as often better than 
the speech that broke it. There may indeed bz 
an empty silence as there is empty speech ; but the 
empty silence, at least, does not invade others' 
rights, as the inane speaking does. Better the 
empty silence than the hollow words. But there 
is a silence that is felt like an inspiration. It is the 
silence that is alive with emotion and thought. 
Such silence is vital with the seeds of mighty 
actions. It holds the secrets of many hearts, which 
shall one day be revealed in deeds. 

But I must hasten on to speak of one or two 
other lessons which may come closer to the individ- 
ual experience of us all. It is the lot of our human- 
ity that we are, not infrequently, cast into perplex- 



268 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ing and painful straits of life, where we long for a 
word of revelation, which is not vouchsafed, to lead 
us out of our difficulties and show us our future. 
We often say, If we only knew what the future is 
to bring to pass, how much more content we might 
be, and how much more wisely act in the present ! 
What, we anxiously ask, is to be the consequence of 
our taking this course or that ? What is to be the 
coming career of our children and of others we love ? 
The young themselves are often troubled with anxi- 
eties about their future course in life. If they only 
knew what they are best fitted for, what they can 
best succeed in, how easy would seem present 
duties ! To-day, perhaps, nothing seems to open : 
what, then, will it be to-morrow ? Sometimes we 
may be watching by a sick-bed, or watching with 
painful uncertainty our own health. Or, harder 
still, we may in dread suspense be watching the 
uncertain moral steps of one we love better than our 
own life. Oh, if we only knew ! we say. And 
sometimes the questions so press upon us that in 
our helplessness and despair we are tempted to cry 
out for the heavens to be opened and a special 
revealing message to be sent to our aid. But to all 
these entreaties the heavens say nothing. To all 
such pleadings there only comes the answer of 
silence. Is heaven, then, dumb ? Does it deny all 
revelation ? No : not more surely does its shining 
canopy of blue embrace to-day the gladsome earth 
and nurse its waiting life than it broods with silent 
care over the human soul, and has given to it all the 
revelation that it needs. It is a fallacy to suppose 



THE SILENT REVELATION 



269 



that to know with certainty the future is to reveal 
present duty. For our duty is not so much con- 
cerned with consequences as with motives. Conse- 
quences may depend on many wills, on many con- 
current forces entirely beyond our control. But our 
duty concerns our present act alone. Moreover, to 
ask to know our future, or any future with which 
we have concern, is to ask an impossibility. That 
future is to depend to some extent upon what we 
do at this present time ; and it rightly so depends, 
by the great law of moral responsibility. And to 
ask that we may know the future so as to determine 
present action by it is to reverse this primal law of 
human development. We must ourselves, by our 
present faithfulness, help to make that future. And 
it is seldom that the duty of the present moment, 
the duty that is the very next to be done, is not 
revealed. The necessary revelation has been vouch- 
safed in the silent working of our own reason, in the 
light of conscience, in the natural influx of a love 
that binds us in ties of sympathy to our kind and 
makes us both strong and tender toward all human 
wants. In the faithful activity of these great facul- 
ties, — Reason, Conscience, disinterested Love, — 
the law of life is revealed. And if, even with these 
silent revealers of duty's path, the present opening 
for that path may seem to us closed and we see not 
where to apply our hand ; if, having done all within 
our power, we seem to be called only to the post of 
passive submission and endurance, — let us remem- 
ber still that " they also serve who only stand and 
wait." 



270 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



And there is another silent waiting imposed upon 
us, and wisely, by the necessary conditions of our 
knowledge, another waiting for a revelation which 
is made only in silence to the waiting heart, — the 
revelation of the kind of life that is to be after this 
life of earth. If human entreaties from the time 
mankind began their existence could have brought a 
disclosure of the futurity after death, all the mys- 
teries of heaven would now be open to our gaze. 
But not a syllable of the great mystery has yet been 
articulated that can permanently satisfy or that is 
worthy of the quest. The curtain hangs there, 
drawn by a silent hand ; and it hangs there wisely. 
Let us not profane its sanctity by hands that with 
too curious eagerness would lift it aside. Infinitely 
better is it to wait in the quietude of a patient hope. 
Yet is there no revelation made ? The revelation of 
all future life is silently made in the life that now is, 
— in those deep qualities of life that draw their sus- 
tenance from eternal fountains, and so proclaim their 
own immortality ; in the wisdom and goodness which 
are adequate to all emergencies of our earthly life, 
and which we may trust to provide what is worthiest 
and best for the life hereafter. 



December 16, 1877. 



XIX. 



THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY. 

" No man is so great as mankind." — Theodore Parker. 

I propose to speak to you this morning on the 
topic suggested by the phrase "The Religion of 
Humanity." It is a phrase that has come into use 
somewhat in these latter years to indicate a type of 
religion that is growing up, mainly, outside of eccle- 
siastical lines and independent of the old claims 
of religious authority. In the history of religious 
thought, the phrase was first adopted by the French 
philosopher, Auguste Comte, who turned it to a 
certain philosophical use, to signify, in his hierarchy 
of the intellectual and social sciences, the place 
and service of religion. In his system of positive 
knowledge, or of science as based only on phe- 
nomena and their generalized laws, theology had no 
place. He declared that theology represented the 
obsolete and obsolescent child-mood of the human 
mind ; that it grew out of the disposition to refer to 
supernatural agencies things which the human under- 
standing could not account for by natural causes. 
But, though theology was not recognized by Comte 
as having any valid basis, and though he believed 
in no Deity as a first cause, nor in personal immor- 



272 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



tality, nor in any special religious revelation as 
having a claim to authority over the human mind, 
yet he conceded the vast power and service of the 
religious sentiment ; and upon it, newly directed, he 
mentally constructed and endeavored to put into 
practical operation a new system of religion, with a 
complete cultus and all the officers and equipments 
of an organized church. He called religion the 
crown of all the social sciences, the goal of sociol- 
ogy. He defined it as "the complete harmony of 
human existence, individual and collective, or the 
universal unity of all existence in one Great Being," 
whom he calls Humanity. Emancipated from the 
crude primitive forms of polytheistic worship and 
from the vague metaphysical conception of a single 
Deity in the skies, the religious sentiment, he 
claimed, would finally ripen into the personal devo- 
tion and self-sacrifice of individual being for the 
welfare of universal humanity. Hence the name, 
" Religion of Humanity," which the stringent dis- 
ciples of Comte still use as a title for their special 
religious beliefs. 

In this usage, however, the phrase has a some- 
what technical, if not sectarian meaning. It must 
at least be said that Comte's plan of an organized 
church, however revolutionary his ideas, was mod- 
elled too closely after the Roman Catholic Church 
to gain much headway in the modern world. He 
adopted very much of the old ecclesiastical machin- 
ery and not a little of the papal idea of ecclesias- 
tical authority, from which he thought the com- 
mon people were not ripe for release. The saints' 



THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 



273 



days and festivals he changed into days of homage 
to the world's great religious and moral teachers of 
all faiths, — as Moses, Socrates, Zoroaster, Jesus, 
Mohammed, etc. He even projected a reform of the 
calendar, so as to name the months and days of the 
week after the names of distinguished benefactors of 
the human race. But, with all his wealth of learning 
and his wide grasp of intellect, Comte apparently 
does not seem to have perceived that the people 
who were ready for emancipation from the old eccle- 
siastical authority, the people who were prepared to 
understand and welcome his revolutionary thought, 
would not be easily marshalled under the sway of 
a new external authority in matters of faith. And 
so his grand plan of a new church remains only a 
model — on paper. He made the mistake of think- 
ing that a religion, instead of being a natural growth, 
was an architectural structure to be artificially built. 

But the phrase "Religion of Humanity" is sug- 
gestive ; and it suggests something more important 
for our notice than the French philosopher's elab- 
orate scheme of a new form of worship and a new 
church. It suggests certain tendencies and forces 
in modern society, certain lines and methods of 
thought, certain drifts of opinion and belief, by 
which old religious ideas and usages are being 
revolutionized, and, inside of churches and outside 
of churches, in the midst of dissolving creeds and 
worships, an essentially new form of religion is 
growing up. And it is chiefly these tendencies and 
movements that I have in mind in bringing the 
subject here. They are observable not only in 



274 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

Christendom, but in other religions, — in Judaism, 
in Buddhism, in Brahmanism, in Mohammedanism, 
in the little remnant of the Parsee faith that still 
survives. In every religion which has a constitu- 
ency respectably civilized there is a progressive 
party, a section that feels the influence of modern 
ideas and is astir with the mental and moral life of 
modern times. This party* which is following the 
authority of reason rather than that of old ecclesi- 
astical faiths, may still keep, perhaps, the old relig- 
ious names, only modifying them, it may be, by the 
prefix liberal, as Liberal Christian, Liberal Hebrew, 
Liberal Mohammedan. But the tendency, wherever 
found, is in the same direction ; the movement, what- 
ever its starting-point, is toward a common goal 
And, when the movement becomes more self-con- 
scious and self-centred, it will most likely find some 
new and common name for its now separate branches. 

In the first place, the phrase "Religion of Hu- 
manity " suggests an antithesis to the religion of 
supernaturalism. The prevailing idea concerning 
religion — of all religion commonly regarded as true 
and efficacious — is that it is of supernatural origin 
and is preserved by supernatural agencies. Its light 
is not believed to be the light of the common human 
reason, of natural conscience, of the aspiring human 
spirit, but a light miraculously revealed from the 
heavens. Its first promulgators are claimed to have 
been specially commissioned by the Almighty for 
their work, endowed with the power to perform mir- 
acles to attest their authority. Its Bibles were writ- 
ten, it is alleged, by supernaturally inspired men. 



THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 275 

Its doctrines could have never been discovered by, 
the unassisted human mind, but were sent into the 
human mind directly from heaven. Its church was 
organized under specific divine commands, and has 
been directed by a special outpouring of the divine 
Spirit in no wise natural to humanity. The kind of 
faith that it inculcates may harmonize with human 
reason or it may conflict with it ; but, in any event, 
it is superior to human reason, being the direct gift 
of God. The kind of prayer that it inculcates is the 
asking of God for spiritual or temporal favors, in the 
belief that effectual prayer will bring from the Being 
addressed, by some supernatural process, the needed 
answer. Such are some of the main characteristics 
of supernatural religion. They are not specially 
Christian or Hebrew. They belong quite as much 
to other religions. The devotees of all the great 
religions of mankind have believed in the supernatu- 
ral origin and protection of their own special faith. 

To all these beliefs, the Religion of Humanity is 
opposed. Its primary principle is that religion is 
the natural product of the human mind, of the 
human race, — of the human mind aspiring indeed 
toward infinite Mind, searching after a First Cause, 
seeking to come into practical relations with that 
which gives life and law to all finite existences, but 
still the human mind. When ecclesiastical relig- 
ion says, " Religious truth came by revelation," the 
Religion of Humanity replies, Revelation is natural. 
It is the human mind unfolding by natural impulse 
to truth as a flower to the sun. When ecclesiastical 
religion says, " Special divine inspiration is necessary 



276 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



to bring religion upon the earth," the Religion of 
Humanity answers, Inspiration is by natural law : 
it is "the light that lighteth every man that cometh 
into the world." The Religion of Humanity knows 
no miracle greater than the laws of nature. It 
believes that the human mind, by natural relation- 
ship, is connected with the source of all that is, 
and by natural processes draws its life from that 
inexhaustible fountain. But, since the religions have 
their origins on the human side of this relation- 
ship, and since they necessarily have their historical 
development within human conditions, the Religion 
of Humanity affirms that they are all subject to 
human limitations, to human error and infirmity ; 
that they partake of the race-characteristics of the 
people holding them, and correspond to their phase 
of mental enlightenment and culture ; and that none 
of them can legitimately claim infallibility. 

The Religion of Humanity consequently asserts 
that the special religions are progressive ; that they 
are evolutions, not outright creations ; that none of 
them was given fully matured, with ritual and doc- 
trine and precept complete, but that all have grown 
and been shaped by the natural exigencies of all 
historical development ; that their doctrines have 
been wrought and rewrought in the chemistry of 
human thought ; that their rituals have been grad- 
ually moulded into form by the spiritual imagination 
of the people adopting them ; that even their moral 
impulses have taken direction, their very virtues 
been modified, and their character been transformed, 
by the conditions of the changing epochs through 



THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 

which they have passed. There is found no such 
fixity in religion, no such unchangeableness of 
doctrine or spirit or method in religious history, 
as the claim to supernatural origin and supernatural 
preservation would imply. The process of relig- 
ious development is traced in the ordinary grooves 
of human history. It is closely allied with the nat- 
ural development of human intelligence, of language, 
of literature, of nationalities, and is as easily ac- 
counted for on natural grounds as is any of these. 
To whatever spheres of truth, to whatever forces of 
vital power, beyond and above humanity, religion 
may be linked, — and that it is connected with such 
there is no denial, — this connection is by laws and 
processes perfectly natural. The outreaching, all- 
embracing sphere of truth comes naturally within 
human cognizance. The circle, however high it 
may arch, dips down to the natural vision of the 
human mind ; and the human mind, by natural 
attraction, follows the circle upward. Wherever 
the vital forces that sustain the universe may have 
their primal source, the well-springs by which 
humanity is to live and do its work are within the 
natural domain of the human mind, close to its 
daily tasks, and do not have to be opened by any 
miracle to be of avail. Therefore it is that this 
view of religion may be called the Religion of 
Humanity, — that is, it is religion conceived as 
having its historical beginning in the human mind, 
its development in the natural limits of human his- 
tory, its vital power all along as associated by the 
natural relationships of human faculty with what- 



278 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ever may be the ultimate Source and Unity of all 
power, — in contradistinction from that view which 
refers the original existence of religion to super- 
natural revelation, and its continuance to supernat- 
ural preservation. 

From this primary principle, it follows, secondly, 
that to the Religion of Humanity the special relig- 
ions are so many different sects. Just as Christen- 
dom is divided into numerous sects, Baptists, 
Episcopalians, Catholics, Unitarians, Quakers, and 
the like, just as Judaism and Buddhism and Mo- 
hammedanism have also had their conflicting sects, 
so these various religions, Judaism, Buddhism, Chris- 
tianity, Mohammedanism, etc., make the larger sects 
into which the religion of mankind is divided. And 
as each sect of a special religion thinks that it has 
the true faith or form of that religion, and that all 
the others are at some point or points in error, so 
the devotees of each of the world's great religions 
think that they have the true faith, and that all other 
forms of religion are erroneous. And hence be- 
tween the religions, just as between the sects of a 
particular religion, the sectarian spirit prevails, and 
sectarian controversies and conflicts exist. No con- 
troversies are so bitter as those which spring from 
sectarian animosities. No wars were ever so fierce 
or so bloody as those which have been declared in 
the name of religion. No armies were ever led 
against each other with such relentless and destruc- 
tive collision as those which have been marshalled 
under antagonistic banners of religious faith, each 
claimed to be the standard of the true God, and 



THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 



279 



therefore pledged to conquer. To the Religion of 
Humanity, this sectarian spirit between the relig- 
ions, as between the smaller sects of the same re- 
ligion, is all wrong. From it has come not only 
enormous and cruel destruction of human life, but 
immense waste of human power, — waste of in- 
tellectual energy, disastrous misdirection of moral 
and spiritual enthusiasm, self-consecrations arrayed 
against each other in fatal combat, and neutraliz- 
ing each other's aims, instead of combining their 
might for the welfare of mankind. There is no 
sadder sight in history than this sight, so com- 
mon, of religious enthusiasm battling against relig- 
ious enthusiasm ; than the spiritual consecration 
of one portion of mankind — this highest demon- 
stration of power of which man is capable — in 
deadly conflict with the spiritual consecration of 
another portion of mankind. Yet, so long as the 
religions of the world, in a sectarian spirit, lay ex- 
clusive claims to supernatural communications with 
divine truth, each arrogating to itself the privilege 
of having the only saving knowledge of God, this 
wasting, ruinous antagonism is inevitable. To the 
Religion of Humanity, it is morally and mentally 
wrong. Since, in its view, no religion is infallible, 
none supernaturally authenticated, none miracu- 
lously guaranteed to contain the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth, so this sectarian 
dispute and warfare among them are as irrational in 
logic as they are bitter in spirit and destructive in 
practice. 

This rational theory of religion does not affirm, 



280 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



indeed, that all of the special religions are alike 
in value. It does not claim that their contents 
are equal. It does not say that they are all equally 
enlightened or equally spiritual or equally adapted 
to serve the needs of all nations alike to-day. All 
that it asserts is that the religions originated and 
grew by the same natural process ; that no one 
of them can assume supremacy over the rest by 
reason of any difference in respect to birth or 
family. But that the religions should differ in the 
relative value of their contents is as natural as 
that literatures should differ, or that languages 
should differ, or that nations should differ in 
respect to civilization and culture, or that in- 
dividual persons, born of the same parents, should 
differ in intelligence and character. The Religion 
of Humanity, however, is not so much concerned 
to display these natural and readily conceded differ- 
ences, nor so eager to prove by detailed comparisons 
that this particular religion is superior to that, as 
it is desirous to discover and disclose the things that 
are good and true in all the religions, and to ac- 
knowledge that, in their time and place, they have 
all rendered some good service to mankind. It finds 
in them all a moral standard better than the pre- 
vailing moral practice and a spiritual aspiration that 
shames the average grossness of daily living. It 
will not commit what has well been called the 
flagrant injustice of comparing the low-water mark 
of one religion with the high-water mark of a 
neighboring faith, — the present practical moral 
condition of India, for instance, with the ethical 



THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 



28l 



standard of the Sermon on the Mount ; for this 
is a mode of comparison that might be turned end 
for end, and be made to strike quite as effectively in 
another direction. Christendom has had, for exam- 
ple, the Sermon on the Mount for eighteen hundred 
years ; and yet the average practical morality of the 
most enlightened Christian country to-day might be 
put to the blush by the side of many a chapter of 
moral precepts from the Scriptures of Asiatic Brah- 
manism and Buddhism. Nor, even comparing prac- 
tice with practice, can Christendom boast very loudly 
over non-Christian countries. Keshub Chunder Sen, 
the native reformer of the Brahmanistic faith in 
British India, on his visit to England a few years 
since, was astonished and grieved at the moral 
condition of this leading nation of Christendom, — ■ 
at the prevailing grossness in eating and drinking, 
the intemperance, the costly entertainments, and 
material extravagance of all sorts, the struggle after 
and worship of wealth, the inequality between the 
rich and the poor, the degradation and criminal- 
ity of large sections of population, and the merci- 
less recklessness with which the upper strata of 
society, with few exceptions, push their interests, 
roughshod, over the bodies and souls of the lower. 
This was a heathen judgment on Christian England. 

But there is little profit in these comparisons, on 
the one side or the other, except as a means of rec- 
tifying partisan and sectarian judgments. More 
profitable is it for the devotees of the different re- 
ligions to seek out their agreements and identities ; 
to inquire how much ground they hold in common ; 



282 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



to compare ideas and theories in the spirit of truth- 
seeking; to meet each other half-way across the 
dismantled walls that have hitherto divided them 
into hostile camps, and to ask each other how they 
can best put their forces together for the ameliora- 
tion of the human degradation and distress around 
them. To the Religion of Humanity, it is not so 
vital a point to decide with precision by just how 
much one religion may be theoretically better than 
another as it is to bring out and make practically 
applicable what is good in them all. The intellect- 
ual and spiritual rank of the religions may be left to 
the rational judgment of the historian, of the anti- 
quarian investigator, — to the ultimate conscientious 
judgment of mankind. But, in every one of the 
great religions, even in those deemed the poorest, 
there is enough of pure moral truth to save all their 
professed adherents, if they would only live up to it. 
And the question with the Religion of Humanity 
that presses before all others is how to make this 
truth of avail, and turn it into practical benefit. 

For, again, it is another characteristic of the Relig- 
ion of Humanity that it is more eager to improve the 
present condition of mankind than to settle any dis- 
puted question of theology or to discuss the relative 
merits of the many forms of ecclesiasticism. This, in- 
deed, is its main object, — the improvement of man's 
moral, mental, and physical condition here in this 
present world, — in a word, the enlightenment and 
elevation of mankind. This object, to be a human- 
itarian religion, dominates all others, and might well 
be regarded as giving to the rising modern faith its 



THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 



283 



name. It would be a Religion of Humanity in deed 
as well as in word. Questions concerning man's 
origin and early history are not void of profit, — far 
from it. Not even are stories of Gardens of Eden, 
and of Golden Ages in the past, and of Deities visit- 
ing the earth, walking visibly among men, convers- 
ing with them, and writing books for the use of 
mankind, wholly without interest to historical inves- 
tigation. But it is a higher proof of moral and relig- 
ious purpose to strive to make a Garden of Eden and 
a Golden Age and a Divine Presence on earth 
to-day than to put faith in these traditions of by- 
gone times. This rationalistic, humane religion does 
not deny that there is a life hereafter, — some future 
world for man ; but it affirms that man's chief and 
all-controlling duty is here and now in this present 
world, — that to perform well his part on the globe 
and in the sphere to which he is now allotted, and 
thus to show that he is able to manage wisely and 
well the world he now possesses, will be the best 
possible preparation for any world that is to be 
given to him hereafter. This view of religion does, 
indeed, in contradistinction from what has been the 
prevailing teaching of the Christian Church, lay 
more emphasis on the life that now is than on the 
future life. It arraigns, in fact, the popular Chris- 
tian theology for drawing man's thought too much 
away to the life hereafter, so that duties here are 
liable to be neglected in dreamings and visions of 
a future bliss. The Religion of Humanity says, Let 
the vision of the future remain a vision, a hope, a 
faith, if you can ; but let it not entice moral interest 



284 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



and energy away from the pressing responsibilities 
and stern realities of the present time. Here is our 
place for the present, here our task, our charge, our 
mission. Let us insure the hoped-for felicity now, 
on earth, right in the spot where lies our daily task, 
by a faithful inquiry how we can best discharge our 
obligations to our fellow-men and to ourselves, and 
by a faithful obedience to our own highest ideals of 
duty. Mr. Ruskin somewhere says that that is the 
true mother church where every man takes the 
hand of every other man helpfully. And to bring in 
this era of fraternity, of brotherhood, of mutual 
helpfulness, — to remove as far as possible the bur- 
dens that oppress men, to enlighten ignorance, les- 
sen misery, assuage suffering, prevent sin, — is the 
aim of the Religion of Humanity. 

Some of the old ecclesiastical types of religion, in 
their efforts to imprison the human mind, in their 
attempts to stifle human thought and fetter personal 
liberty, in their contemptuous and even malignant 
treatment of the human body, in their persistent 
struggles to bandage and bondage the human soul, 
and to keep it in a condition of mental and spiritual 
childhood, and in their threats of infinite torture in 
an eternal future by way of enforcing their teach- 
ings, may rightly be styled religions of Inhumanity. 
From all such bondage, from all such cruel terrors, 
the Religion of Humanity endeavors to emancipate 
the human soul. Its teaching is : Give free room 
for growth, for development, for culture ; give oppor- 
tunity, give liberty, give manhood, spread knowl- 
edge, inquire, gather facts, think. Human society 



THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 



285 



cannot be harmed, but only benefited, by thought. 
Let us have more thought, and better and truer 
thought. The Religion of Humanity would awaken 
the human mind from the nightmare of old super- 
stitions that press upon it. It would couch its 
vision, and bid it see the glories of the world which 
modern science reveals, instead of groping in the 
dim twilight of primeval faiths. It bids us be men 
and women, whole men, whole women, — not neces- 
sarily saints after the ecclesiastical pattern, not the 
cramped, lop-sided, long-faced, and bloodless speci- 
mens of humanity, expurgated editions of human 
kind, that passed for saints in mediaeval times, but it 
urges us to attain the highest ideals of manhood and 
womanhood possible to our highest vision. 

The Religion of Humanity gratefully accepts the 
work of prophets and apostles in olden time, — not 
those of one religion alone, but the sages and 
spokesmen of all faiths. Yet it does not believe 
that the spirit of wisdom and power that spoke 
through them has gone so far away that it cannot 
reach the human mind to-day. It affirms that, to 
the willing ear, to the open mind, the spirit of truth 
may yet come with all its ancient power. The Re- 
ligion of Humanity has its Bibles, — not only the good 
words of one faith, but of all faiths, — the best words 
of all literatures, past and present. And it would 
use all these external helps, past and present, — the 
prophets, apostles, preachers, sacred words, illus- 
trious examples of consecrated and noble living, — 
not to overawe and overpower with their authority 
the present mental and moral life of mankind, but 



286 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



rather to stimulate that life to a like self-reliance 
and to a nobler fidelity to those unseen inner laws 
that are stamped on each soul, — the law of Reason 
and the law of Duty. 

If it be objected that this Religion of Humanity 
seems to have very little to say of a Supreme Being, 
very little to inculcate in respect to forms of wor- 
ship, let me say, in conclusion, that it requires a 
subtler metaphysic than philosophy has yet given, 
a keener logical method than science has yet discov- 
ered, to draw the line in the human soul that shall 
separate there the divine elements from the human, 
and to say, On this side is man, on that, God. The 
Religion of Humanity, emphasizing chiefly the 
moral idea and aim, does not, it is true, put into 
the articles of a creed any speculations concerning 
an infinite and confessedly incomprehensible Being 
alleged to sit upon a throne in the upper heavens 
and to govern the universe from that distant seat of 
supreme sovereignty ; but it nevertheless recognizes 
the logical necessity of a Power more than commen- 
surate with humanity — commensurate with all pos- 
sible existence — in and through which all things 
have their law, their root of life, their present 
vitality and being : and special organizations and ser- 
vices may be of great use in practically strengthen- 
ing and enlarging this sense of vital relationship. 
But when man lives by his highest sense of duty, 
when he lives a life of strict integrity, of purity, of 
kindness, of love, of self-devotion to truth and right- 
eousness, though he may profess little faith in the 
conceptions of Deity presented to him in the creeds 



THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 287 

of the churches, yet such a one carries within him 
the very presence and power of the Eternal. He 
does not need to seek without to find Deity : Deity 
has found him. The infinite power, the divine life, 
is coursing this moment through the natural arteries 
of his own mind and conscience. God dwells within 
him. And, though he go to worship neither at Jeru- 
salem nor on Mt. Gerizim, he carries ever within 
himself that daily worship which is in spirit and in 
truth. 



March 24, 1878. 



XX. 



WHAT DO WE WORSHIP? 

"This world is not for him who doth not worship." — Ancient 
Hindu. 

I would fain bring to you this morning, friends, 
some vital central thought, which should concern 
not only our service here, but the larger service of 
our daily lives. And how can I better indicate such 
thought than by the question which I have chosen 
for the subject of this discourse, What do we wor- 
ship ? It were well, certainly, if we should occa- 
sionally put this question to ourselves. If worship 
be anything more than a superstition, if it be any- 
thing that at all corresponds to the high claims 
which in all ages and nations have been made for 
it, then it is something of supreme moment, and, 
since it concerns man's highest interests, deserves 
his most serious attention. 

I said, " If worship be anything more than a 
superstition." But perhaps I shall be reminded at 
the outset that there are intelligent minds who ques- 
tion whether it be anything more ; that there are 
persons who affirm that all theology is mythology, 
and that all forms of worship are but modes of super- 
stition, which, with the advance of reason, necessarily 
become obsolescent ; and that, therefore, the first 



WHAT DO WE WORSHIP ? 



289 



question to be settled is whether worship has any 
genuine and permanent reality, any rational and 
abiding basis. To this, I reply that I regard what is 
called worship as a specially organized expression 
and aid of religion ; and that I do not think that 
religion can be rightly considered as synonymous 
with, or necessarily dependent upon, any system of 
theology which the human mind has ever framed or 
believed. Rather does religion represent a faculty 
or function inherent in the constitution of human 
nature itself, and therefore necessarily existent so 
long as human nature exists and keeps its identity. 
It is the creator of theologies and worships, not 
their product. What becomes obsolete and passes 
away is theology ; that is, human beliefs about 
religion, — creeds, statements of faith, mental views 
and convictions concerning Supreme Being and 
man's relation thereto. These have been continually 
changing from the beginning of human existence, 
and are still subject to change as advances are made 
in knowledge and in the application of reason to 
matters of human experience. Many of these beliefs, 
indeed, must now be classed with superstitions : 
they belonged to man's childhood and immaturity, 
and have passed away as a manlier knowledge 
has been gained. And forms of worship that were 
founded upon such beliefs or necessarily implied them 
have passed away too, or are certainly doomed to 
the same obsolescence and oblivion. But, amid all 
such changes, religion itself has remained, surviving 
numerous sects and systems of theology. Religion 
is man's recognition — through the threefold form 



290 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



of feeling, thought, and act — of his own vital rela- 
tion to the infinite Power or powers of the universe ; 
and it is difficult to see how any sane mind can fail 
to have some degree of such a recognition. And — 
so long as religion exists, changing its beliefs to suit 
the progress of human reason, modifying its concep- 
tions concerning the nature of infinite Power — it is 
irrational to affirm that it may not institute and 
sustain forms of worship which shall not be amen- 
able to the charge of superstition, but shall be in 
harmony with its own progressive character, and 
ever a fitting and helpful expression of itself. 

And I wish specially to bring this question of 
worship to our attention here, at this resumption 
of our Sunday services after several weeks of sep- 
aration, because we of this society profess to hold 
the most rational and liberal views of religion. We 
desire and seek to let in the light of the freest rea- 
son upon all religious doctrines and institutions ; 
and hence some among us may be already asking 
whether such services as we hold here from Sunday 
to Sunday have any foundation in rational philos- 
ophy or in practical usefulness. The plain question 
is, — and it is a searching question as well as a plain 
one, — Can this free human reason, which we profess 
to take for our guidance, consistently engage in any 
form of worship ? We must answer this question 
before we can answer intelligently that other ques- 
tion, What do we worship ? 

But, first of all, I want to say that we should not 
allow ourselves to come to this question with any 
prejudice against the institution of worship derived 



WHAT DO WE WORSHIP ? 



29I 



from its irrational associations. If we think it 
better, as many liberal thinkers do, in order to save 
ourselves from being misunderstood, to abandon the 
use of the word worship, because, like a good deal 
of ecclesiastical phraseology, it has become damaged 
by the superstitious practices and beliefs with which 
it has been so commonly connected, why, well and 
good. I, for one, do not insist on the word. Only 
let us not fall into the error of thinking also that 
that disposes of the essential thing which the word 
at its root signifies. The word in itself, in its gen- 
eral and etymological significance, is a good one. 
The English language has no better. In its prim- 
itive Anglo-Saxon origin, it means the condition or 
state of worthiness, or that quality in any object or 
being which gives value, desirableness, excellence, 
and attracts admiration and homage ; and hence, 
secondarily, it came to be applied to the acts by 
which such admiration and homage were expressed 
by other beings, and then technically and specially 
to acts expressive of homage to Deity. Now, human 
conceptions of Deity have been attended, of course, 
with abundance of errors. Primitively, the power of 
the mighty forces that seemed to control the uni- 
verse was more felt than their wisdom or order or 
goodness, and man's ideas of that which constituted 
the highest excellence or worth were necessarily 
crude and low. Hence, the acts of homage toward 
Deity or Deities, or the rites of worship which were 
instituted, were often expressive of abject fear, and 
were accompanied by many childish and even degrad- 
ing and cruel practices. With the progress of en- 



292 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



lightenment, these crude ideas have been corrected, 
and man's conception of what constitutes the high- 
est worthiness has been elevated and purified ; and 
acts of worship have taken a correspondingly more 
rational and spiritual form. Something, indeed, of 
the old barbarian grossness often appears to survive 
in the religious ideas and ceremonies even of some 
sections of civilized society. Still, it must be said 
that enlightened mankind in general have a much 
nobler conception of Divine Being, and worship a 
much higher order of excellence than did their 
ancestors of the primeval ages. And, even though 
it may be claimed that, through the progress of 
modern science, the idea of individual personality 
and of personal providence will be eliminated from 
man's conception of Deity and he may come to iden- 
tify infinite Being with the supreme inner energy, 
law, and life of the universe itself, still that does not 
kill the spirit and mood of worship, and need not kill 
the instituted practice of it. 

As this last is a point on which there is a good 
deal of questioning thought, let us look at it a 
moment. My response to the question that might 
here arise would be that Science itself is a worship- 
per. It is a worshipper of truth. Truth is the 
supreme object of its homage and devotion. It has 
no self to set up in opposition to or apart from the 
truth. And is not homage to truth homage to the 
living spirit, or essence, or energy of the universe 
which religion has named Deity ? Look, too, at the 
dominant spirit and mode of life of the true scien- 
tific man. I say the true man of science ; for there 



WHAT DO WE WORSHIP ? 



293 



are charlatans on the field of science as everywhere 
else. There are partisans and dogmatists among the 
class of scientific men as among theologians, — men 
who are bent upon advocating some pet theory, in 
which self-interest or self-pride is involved, rather 
than upon eliciting and establishing the pure truth. 
But take the true men of science (and, in taking 
these, we take really the great leaders in science, of 
whom Darwin, in our own day, may be cited as the 
most conspicuous example), — take these men, who 
have no other interest than the discovery and pro- 
motion of truth, who spend their abilities, their fort- 
unes, their lives, in this unselfish search, giving no 
heed to consequences, but concerned only to elicit 
from the dark realm of the unknown the pure and 
simple reality of things, — and I know not where we 
shall find another class of persons who manifest 
more habitually that disinterested homage and devo- 
tion to a supreme object, which is the very essence 
of worship. And many of this class of men exhibit 
in their work the genuine religious emotions. In 
the presence of their great discoveries, they are 
awed into speechless and sometimes spoken adora- 
tion before the mysterious Power, the wisdom and 
purpose of whose hitherto secret ways they have 
traced' and revealed to the world. We cannot say, 
therefore, that science and scientific men are antago- 
nistic to the spirit of worship. They may reform 
and purify worship, but they do not destroy it. 
They may not often be found in the public places of 
instituted worship, but this may be because the kind 
of worship in these places is not generally as yet of 



294 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



so high and enlightened an order as is their habitual 
mood of homage. They are seekers and discoverers 
of truth. Truth is the lode-star of their lives, — 
their supremest attraction, their all-satisfying reward. 
How, then, can they be other, though they do not 
name him, than seekers and revealers of the Power 
that religion calls God ? 

Science, moreover, discloses within the universe 
to all our eyes, in the infinitely great and the infi- 
nitely little, new elements for inciting our adoring 
wonder: a law, majesty, order, beauty, power, an 
omnipresent ceaseless activity and life, such as, in 
their inner purport and in their relation to the life 
and development of mankind, the ancients never 
dreamed of, when they bowed down in worship be- 
fore the outward objects of nature. Science has, in 
fact, revealed so much in the material universe itself, 
unfolded its heights and its depths, and lifted the 
curtain from so many of its wonderful energies, that, 
so far from the true spirit of worship being dead- 
ened in earnest and observant minds, there is rather 
almost cause for wonder that we do not to-day bow 
in adoration before the mystic energies that burn in 
the sun and nourish the earth, people the heavens 
with stars, and every year reclothe before our eyes 
the fields and woods with fresh life. 

Look, again, at the artist, — not at the charlatan in 
art more than at the charlatan in science ; not at 
the mere artist adventurer, who deals in tinsel and 
clap-trap to catch the popular superficial sense, but 
at the genuine artist whose imagination penetrates 
behind color and form and sensational sound to 



WHAT DO WE WORSHIP ? 



295 



the pure realities of things, and who would reproduce 
nature's highest ideal. What is he but a worshipper 
of beauty ? As the scientist gives his homage to 
truth, so the artist gives his homage to beauty. 
This is the aspect of nature that is his lode-star. It 
is his special gift and province to see the excel- 
lences, the wonders, that may be embodied in form, 
symmetry, harmonious sound, proportion, grace, 
color, light and shade ; and these attract and hold 
him. These excite his reverence, elicit his grateful 
joy and adoration, impel his devotion, and determine 
his career and service. He is a worshipper at the 
shrine of beauty. There is the worthiness which 
wins his special fealty. 

Again, there are those who render their chief 
homage to a moral idea, — to some external object 
of social reform or philanthropy. They may have 
nothing of the artist's capacity. They may know 
comparatively little of science, and have neither taste 
nor ability for its pursuit. Yet, no less than the 
artist and the man of science, they have their su- 
preme object of devotion. They would live for the 
welfare of others, — for the righting of the wrongs of 
humanity, for the relief of the burdened, for the 
lifting up of the weak, for the opening of opportu- 
nities to the neglected and ignorant. Very likely 
this class of persons, too, may have little to do with 
the ordinary instituted forms of so-called worship. 
Many of this class of men and women in our time, 
seeing how little the churches in their organized 
capacity are doing for social reform and for causes 
of public philanthropy, are ^disposed to stand aloof 



296 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



from them altogether. They think that they can 
spend the hours of Sunday to better benefit for the 
world than joining in the customary church services. 
Perhaps they are inclined to say that humanity, at 
least in its most enlightened portions, has outgrown 
the need of such services. Nevertheless, these per- 
sons, though eschewing what is ecclesiastically called 
worship, have in their special aim and work the es- 
sential spirit and mood of worship in its general sig- 
nificance. That which draws and holds their highest 
homage, and commands the self-sacrificing devotion 
of their lives, is the idea of benevolence to mankind. 
This idea is to them the essence of the highest 
conceivable excellence, or worthiness. This, if they 
were to put their conception of infinite Being into 
words at all, — this idea, raised to the infinite degree, 
would be their highest definition of God. As he is 
the active power of supreme benevolence working 
for the welfare of finite creatures, so, they say, can 
they render the best and most acceptable service to 
him by the same kind of work for the well-being 
of humanity. For this class of persons especially, 
the old Latin proverb seems to embody the idea of 
worship: "Laborare est orare," — "To work is to 
worship." 

I have given these different illustrations for the 
sake of showing that, though we may discard what is 
technically called worship in the history of religion, 
we do not thereby free ourselves from the essential 
thing which the word worship in its general signifi- 
cance covers. Every true and earnest soul gives its 
homage somewhere; has some supreme and over- 



WHAT DO WE WORSHIP ? 



297 



mastering attraction that makes a worthy aim in life ; 
has some conception of worthiness above all others 
that moulds and determines life. It may be an idea, 
it may be some aspect of nature or the universe, it 
may be the inspiring example and character of some 
great person, it may be some grand aim of philan- 
thropy, or it may be some grander, all-comprehend- 
ing conception of universal excellence. Whatever 
it be, this is practically for such soul its object of 
worship. This creates the shrines at which it bows 
in its sincerest and most effective devotions, sets 
for it the goal of life, shapes character and career, 
and determines destiny. 

It must be further said, too, that not only do the 
great, sincere, and earnest souls have such objects 
of worship, but little souls, and selfish souls, and 
souls that are full of vicious impulses and travel 
evil and pernicious courses, have also their wor- 
ships. That idea or attraction or wish, whatever it 
be, which gives the dominant impulse in their lives, 
is the object of their homage. It may be a very sor- 
did and degrading idea of life. It may be some 
vicious and criminal affection. It may be some poor, 
little, selfish aim that drags the soul down instead of 
lifting it up, — as the mere accumulation of money, 
luxurious self-indulgence, satisfactions of carnal ap- 
petite, ambition for personal power and distinction 
for their own sake. But, whatever it be, there is the 
god they actually worship. There is the shrine at 
which their hearts bow and their real vows are per- 
formed. Even if custom or policy take them to 
church on Sunday, and with decorous attitude and 



298 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



pious mien they go through with all the outward 
worshipful forms of the place, it does not follow 
that their hearts will be in the words of praise that 
may be sung, or of prayer that may be spoken : their 
actual worship may not be there. Wherever their 
strongest desires and affections may be, there will 
be their hearts, and there their real homage; per- 
chance in some place the very farthest in its atmos- 
phere and habits from a church, and amid scenes 
with which reverence, holiness, and purity could 
scarcely find a home. Their controlling aim in life, 
though itself unworthy, has become for them their 
idea of worthiness, and hence defines their worship. 
Such souls, indeed, are in the moral attitude of 
saying to evil, "Be thou my good." 

The question, then, recurs, Will an organized 
public expression of religion, such as the ordinary 
Sunday service provides, be of any use in helping 
people to get away from this low plane of homage 
up to a higher, — away from sordid and harmful ser- 
vices to low aims and desires up to something more 
worthy and ennobling ? Will, in other words, the 
technical institution of worship be an aid in purify- 
ing and elevating the actual worships of men and 
women in their daily living ? 

In order to answer this question aright, we must 
ask whether there is not some still nobler, at least 
some more comprehensive and universal aim in 
life, some grander and more commanding object of 
human homage, than any we have thus far noted. 
The scientific man, we said, is a worshipper of truth. 
The artist is a worshipper of beauty. The philan- 



WHAT DO WE WORSHIP ? 



299 



thropist gives his highest homage to the idea of 
active benevolence. And, on the other side of the 
moral line, the miser worships money. The ambi- 
tious demagogue worships power and popular ap- 
plause. The voluptuary worships carnal pleasure. 
That is, each soul makes a specialty of any impulse 
or aim that is all-dominant with it. But is there 
not some one aim or impulse which is, or may be, 
the possession of all souls, which is never quite lost 
out of human nature under any conditions, which at 
least always appears in human nature under good 
conditions, and which will unite all souls in a com- 
mon homage ? Most certainly there is. And that 
common impulse or aim is the moral ideal embodied 
in tlie highest conceivable excellence of personal char- 
acter. Here is one object which should have the 
homage of all hearts ; one goal of attainment toward 
which all human beings need to set their faces, and 
strive toward, in order to complete their natures as 
human beings. Here is the central essence of all 
worthiness, and therefore of all genuine worship. 
However worthy and ennobling any special object 
of homage and devotion may be in itself, it may 
leave human character in some of its features quite 
undeveloped and incomplete. The man who is 
devoted to the truth of science may lead a most 
useful life and render vast benefit to his fellow-men ; 
and yet he may be morose, ungracious, and even 
criminally neglectful of social responsibilities and 
obligations which he has assumed, — a one-sided, 
imperfect character. The artist may be enraptured 
with beauty, and bring forth productions which shall 



300 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



win the admiration and awaken the most reverent 
and noble feelings of all who behold or listen. Yet, 
from the very delicacy of his organization, he is 
peculiarly susceptible to those temptations which 
come through temperament ; is open especially to 
personal suspicions and jealousies; and from his 
mood of exaltation, when his spirit mingles in the 
closest worship with his supreme ideal, so that 
whether in the body or out of the body he hardly 
knows, he is apt to be cast down into the depths of 
mental depression and despair. He needs, there- 
fore, the balance of some larger and more universal 
principle to give him self-poise and serenity. And 
even in the philanthropist, noble as his work may 
be, we sometimes miss sadly some of those finer 
qualities of spirit that carry the charm of affection, 
courtesy, and good will into the personal relations 
of life. Thus, in general, the special aim and hom- 
age need to be included in some larger homage 
which shall balance, control, and complete the 
character on all sides ; and only the moral ideal of 
the highest conceivable excellence, well-rounded and 
perfect at every point, can furnish the object of 
such homage. 

Now, human nature at its highest has an entranc- 
ing vision of such an ideal ; and human nature at its 
lowest has now and then a glimpse of such an ideal, 
— some little ray of light striking down from the 
shining glory even into its darkness. But we need 
all the helps possible to enable us to keep the vision 
full and bright ; or to increase the ray of light, if we 
only have a little glimpse of it, and to hold our steps 



WHAT DO WE WORSHIP? 



301 



firm and steady toward it. There is so much in the 
ordinary course of human life that is disheartening 
and depressing, the demands and necessities of the 
body are so importunate, we are all so liable to be 
absorbed in the petty and selfish interests of daily 
care, there are so many temptations dragging at our 
feet and luring us to this or that fancied satisfaction, 
that it is with the utmost difficulty that we keep our 
gaze steadily fixed and our feet moving steadily for- 
ward to the goal of our highest moral ideal. We 
need all the helps possible in this contest. 

And the Sunday service is one of these helps. 
For the world at large, it is a very important help. 
This organized public expression of religion ordi- 
narily called worship is designed to represent and 
enforce the moral ideal of life. It upholds the 
standard of our highest faculties and aspirations 
against the rule of our passions and the sway of all 
lower tendencies. It upholds the standard of the 
spirit against the sovereignty of the flesh, of mental 
and moral satisfactions as more noble and enduring 
than material. It presents self-sacrificing devotion 
to a grand aim in life as nobler and more enriching 
than any possible form of self-indulgence. And it 
strives to keep before our eyes, amid the dissipating 
and illusive enticements of our every-day living, the 
attainment of a well-rounded, all-sided, perfect char- 
acter, — perfect in its moral integrity, in its affec- 
tional sympathy and helpfulness, and in its equipoise 
of aspiration and trust, — as the one absolutely 
worthy goal of human destiny for all classes and 
conditions of mankind. 



302 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



I know, indeed, how far the ecclesiastical usages of 
worship have fallen from a perfect accomplishment 
of this, their true aim. But they have not failed so 
far as to be consigned to instant disuse and destruc- 
tion. I think we should all agree that even those 
forms of worship, in which there still mingle many 
superstitions and errors, may be better for those 
who really believe in them than no forms of religious 
service at all. And have any of us outgrown the 
need of some form of public recognition of religion ? 
If the popular forms of religious service seem to us 
to fail of their highest usefulness because of the 
erroneous dogmas, irrational ceremonies, and secta- 
rian exclusiveness that accompany them, all the 
more is it incumbent upon us to do our part to 
sustain some kind of public institution of religion, 
where reason shall be left untrammelled and thought 
be encouraged in its loftiest ambitions ; where sec- 
tarian walls are thrown down, and no ceremony 
nor doctrine nor letter of Scripture is allowed to 
stand in the way of the free spirit of human fellow- 
ship on the basis of the moral ideal ; where, in fine, 
the main question to be asked is not, With what sect 
or under what name or by what creed or ritual do 
you worship ? but What do you worship ? What 
is the controlling aim, the supreme homage, of your 
life ? And we, friends, do profess to have some 
such idea as this in our Sunday assemblings here. 
Shall we not, then, as we come together again for 
another year of associated effort, come with renewed 
consecration of purpose, each to be faithful at his 
post, and, whatever his part may be, to perform it 



WHAT DO WE WORSHIP ? 303 

well, at whatever cost to personal and seif-indulgent 
desire? With such consecration carried into deeds, 
we may make this house a rich sanctuary of benefit 
to ourselves and our neighbors, — a veritable gate- 
way to heavenly integrity, strength, and peace for 
this community. 



September 14, 1879. 



XXL 



GOD IN HUMANITY. 

" One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, 
and in you all." — New Testament. 

"He who inwardly rules the sun is the same immortal Spirit 
who inwardly rules thee." — Hindu Veda. 

" Man is a mortal god. He leaveth not the earth, and yet dwell- 
eth above, so great is the greatness of his nature." — Ancient 
Egyptian. 

There are doctrines in modern science which 
point to an identity between the power that exhibits 
itself as force and law in the material universe and 
the power that is manifest in human personality. 
Man seems to sum up in his own nature, under 
different and higher modes of activity, the various 
forms of energy and life that were anterior to him 
in the development of the world-forces. In him, the 
laws of material nature become perceptions and sen- 
sibilities. Instinct rises into intuition. Sensation 
opens into reflection. The blind physical attractions 
ascend to the height of conscious affections and 
moral choice. And thus the organizing energy of 
nature, as moral and intelligent being, is crowned 
with conscious power over matter. Now, if we fol- 
low out this thought, — the thought that the organ- 
izing energy, power, force, or formative and animat- 
ing principle in nature, reappears, in a new and 



GOD IN HUMANITY 



305 



higher form of activity, in the consciousness of man, 
— we have a richly suggestive theme, which might 
be named "Man as the Highest Manifestation of the 
Power in Nature," or " Man as the Highest Worker 
in Nature," or, in more theological phrase, " God 
in Humanity." Perhaps, indeed, we shall have at 
some time a scientific doctrine of Incarnation. 

And it is interesting to note how this thought, 
which science is now beginning to unfold and elu- 
cidate, has found expression in various religions 
through the lips of ancient seers, as, for instance, 
in the passages placed at the head of this discourse. 
These and kindred passages which might be selected 
show that, while religion has generally inculcated, 
especially in the teaching accepted by the masses, 
that man is under the rule of a Providence wholly 
external and supernatural to himself, there have yet 
not been wanting those who have had the insight 
to perceive the truth of the natural immanence of 
Deity in man, and to proclaim the corresponding 
truth,- — that man, under the guidance of this imma- 
nent power in his own nature, was meant to be 
chiefly his own providence. The great mass of the 
people, under every form of religious faith, have 
been wont to look for some miraculous aid in the 
solution of life's perplexing problems. They have 
expected the heavens to open at their entreaties, and 
help to be despatched from a divine being believed 
to be enthroned in the upper world, — some Jehovah, 
or Jove, or Vishnu, or Krishna, or Christ, — to whose 
direct supernatural agency they have been accus- 
tomed to refer every good thing that has happened 



306 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



to them and all right knowledge of religious things 
that they have possessed. But the great religious 
teachers, though sometimes yielding to these beliefs 
of the people, have tried to hint of another kind of 
providential guidance, exclaiming with Jesus, "Who 
made me a judge or divider among you ? Why 
judge ye not of yourselves what is right?" or with 
Buddha, " Self is the lord of self : . . . with self well 
subdued, a man finds a lord such as few can find"; 
or with the Greek philosopher, "The gods have not 
given everything to man : it is man who has amel- 
iorated his own destiny " ; or with the mystic Hindu, 
" By his own doings, one rises or falls. . . . Thine 
own self is the holy stream, whose shrine is virtue, 
whose water is truth, whose bank is character, whose 
waves are sympathy. There bathe, O son of Pandu ! 
Thy inward life is not by water made pure." " How 
can teaching help him who is without understand- 
ing ? Can a mirror help the blind to see ? " " Fort- 
une comes of herself to the lion-like man who acts. 
A work prospers through endeavors, not through 
vows." 

If such shining truths as these could become gen- 
eral, how they would revolutionize prevailing relig- 
ious beliefs and practices, not only among the people 
called heathen, but even in Christendom ! For it 
has been and is to-day the dominant philosophy of 
the Christian Church that the divine Providence 
which cares for man acts through some channel of 
supernal influence exterior to him, and not through 
his own natural faculties ; that Deity is a being of 
wholly separate and distinct individuality from man, 



GOD IN HUMANITY 307 

necessarily communicating with him through some 
outward means of revelation ; that religion, to be 
genuine and trustworthy, must be something im- 
parted at the outset by such external revelation, and 
that its efficacy in any individual case must depend 
on the continued act of supernatural impartation 
from this foreign source to each individual soul ; 
that religion, therefore, with all the graces and virt- 
ues it includes, is a form of life to be grafted upon 
man's nature from without rather than a natural 
growth, blossoming, and fruiting of his own native 
perceptions and energies. 

I wish in this discourse to set forth the counter 
doctrine : that religion, with all its beliefs, institu- 
tions, history, is the natural product of the human 
mind ; that the Deity that guides and saves the 
human soul is in the soul and works through the 
soul ; that the Providence that cares for humanity 
and acts specially for the good of humanity is in 
humanity, and acts chiefly through the human facul- 
ties. Yet let me remark at once, to prevent misun- 
derstanding, that this is by no means to say that 
there is no Deity outside of man and no power or 
providence above or beyond man. Deity is imma- 
nent in nature no less than in man, — immanent 
in the whole universe of being, not only in that 
which comes under our cognizance, but in the whole 
possible universe. Wherever there is any kind of 
existence, wherever there is natural law, wherever 
there is any manifestation of power, there is the 
presence of Deity and of providential purpose in- 
dicated. Within and behind all phenomena there 



3 o8 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



is an organific energy and aim. A power that is 
organific does not proceed by blind chance or caprice. 
There is a divinity and providence in the affairs of 
the universe, in the affairs of men. I do not dis- 
pute that proposition. But the proposition I would 
maintain is this : that, whereas it is commonly 
affirmed that man is connected with Divine Power 
in some external and supernatural way, man's rela- 
tion to this Power is really internal, and the Power 
becomes a providence to him by operating in a nat- 
ural way through his natural faculties. Man draws 
upon the resources of Eternal Being for his own 
life, but he does this through the normal action of 
his own normal energies. 

The first proof I would adduce in support of this 
proposition is the history of religion itself. All the 
more recent researches into the history of man's 
religious development go to show that religion has 
not come to man by supernal revelation, but that he 
has slowly grown into it, and that it has gradually 
developed its character and power precisely accord- 
ing to his growing knowledge and intelligence in 
other matters. Defining religion as the expression 
of man's sense of his relation to a mysterious power 
or powers in the universe conceived as affecting in 
some way the destiny of human beings, we find that, 
historically, this expression has everywhere had its 
source in the smallest beginnings, first appearing 
in acts and beliefs that seem to the cultivated relig- 
ious thought of a later time very crude and absurd. 
These beginnings of religion with primitive mankind 
are indeed almost lost in their obscurity, so slight 



GOD IN HUMANITY 



309 



are they, so little illuminated by rational intelligence, 
and so mixed with matters that seem entirely foreign 
to the devout moods of the modern mind. That is, 
religion in its origin corresponds with the mental 
condition of mankind in that primitive era. And, 
in the historical development of religion, this same 
correspondence has been preserved, disclosing every- 
where natural continuity and not supernatural inter- 
vention. When man was in a condition of mental 
childhood, or wherever he is in that condition to-day, 
his religion was and is that of a child. When the 
human race was a child mentally, it "spoke as a 
child, it understood as a child, it thought as a child," 
in religious things. Whenever and wherever man 
has been barbarian, his religion has partaken of bar- 
barous practices. Whenever and wherever man has 
been intellectually narrow, his religion has been nar- 
row, bigoted, severe, apt to fall into bitter propa- 
gandism and persecution. Whenever and wherever 
man has been intellectually imaginative, his religion 
has shown the characteristics of his imagination. 
With breadth of culture, wiser thought, increase of 
intercourse, and widening of acquaintance with the 
human family, and a deeper knowledge of human 
nature, has come a broader, profounder, and more 
charitable religion. Looking, therefore, at the his- 
torical development of humanity, it does not appear 
as if religion had ever been a gift to man direct and 
outright from the heavens, ready-made with its be- 
liefs and institutions for human use, but that it has 
come slowly and gradually as the natural product 
of the human intellect itself, under the natural con- 



3io 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ditions of mundane experience. Man has grown 
into his religion as he has grown into everything 
else of value that really belongs to him. Religion 
has been evolved from the inborn capacities and 
functions of his mind, growing with his growth, 
under the various disciplines of experience, and 
strengthening with his strength. From its small 
beginnings in certain natural sentiments and percep- 
tions of the primitive human mind, enlarging and 
deepening with the mind's growing thought under 
the manifold tuition of outward circumstance, of 
rough or agreeable contact with nature, of spur of 
inner and outer forces, it has thus gradually unfolded 
its great beliefs and institutions, its mighty power, 
its errors and wrongs, but also its immortal hopes 
and its sublime moral consecrations and sanctities. 
The creative power has been content here, as every- 
where else in the universe, to work its way up and 
outward to self-manifestation by a process of slow 
gradation and growth. The human mind even, which 
was to become to so large an extent the instru- 
ment of the divine energy on this planet, had itself 
to be created by this slow process, and to be grad- 
ually adapted to its service by the training and 
strengthening of its faculties under the push and 
stress of the manifold forces of which the earth has 
been the scene. 

And, if religion itself has come into human history 
through the natural action of man's natural faculties, 
then much more may we argue that the special aims 
of religion on which theology has laid stress, such 
as the providential guidance, education, and destiny 



GOD IN HUMANITY 



of the human soul, will be accomplished in the same 
way ; namely, not by a supernatural, mysterious 
Power working outside and above the human fac- 
ulties, but by a providence which works in and 
through the human faculties themselves, and which 
is none the less creative and divine because it is 
natural and human. Let us turn, then, to this more 
practical side of our theme, — to the question of 
Divine Providence in respect to the actual condition 
of humanity, individually and collectively, to-day. 

The way in which the popular theology has met 
this question — throwing, as it does, so much respon- 
sibility upon Almighty Power for man's condition, 
so little upon man himself — has been, I do not hesi- 
tate to say, very demoralizing ; though this demorali- 
zation has not shown itself practically to the extent 
that it would have done, for the reason that, when 
it comes to the practical matters of every-day life, 
people are quite apt to leave their creeds and betake 
themselves to the teachings of experience and com- 
mon sense. Their own observation and experience 
have, in fact, taught them a truer theology than that 
which they have learned in the churches in Sunday 
sermons or gathered from so-called religious books 
and newspapers. The Church has told them of an 
interposing Deity, working when and where he will, 
by an instantaneous personal volition not to be ac- 
counted for, not to be naturally anticipated nor its 
ways calculated, yet coming in response to zealous 
human prayer; but, in their daily life, they have 
learned of a Deity that is as regular as the sunrise 
and sunset, that comes like " the seasons in their 



312 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



order," and works everywhere through the method of 
natural law, — of a Deity, therefore, whose acts can be 
foreseen, whose ways can be depended upon. The- 
ology has pictured to them a Deity whose " angels 
would bear them up in their hands " and save them 
from destruction, though they should violate nature's 
laws ; but life's experience has shown them that the 
angels that come to the rescue of man from the dire 
result of broken laws which are never annulled, are 
either in the guise of human beings or of natural 
forces, or else they come not at all. The panic- 
stricken factory girls who threw themselves from an 
upper window of their burning mill found no angels 
to prevent their being dashed to death upon the 
pavement. The effective intervention for their 
rescue — which man's afterthought is now providing 
for such emergencies — would have been a perma- 
nent fire-escape attached to the wall. Thus it is 
that the experiences of common life and common 
observation are conducing to teach a truer doctrine 
of divine help and guidance for man than has been 
commonly inculcated by the ecclesiastical theology 
of Christendom. People are gradually learning that 
the grand providential resources for insuring human 
progress and happiness are stored within the keep- 
ing of human beings themselves, — that sufficient of 
Deity is naturally incarnate in humanity to endow 
humanity with the power of being a providence and 
a savior to itself. 

If it be necessary to support these propositions 
by arguments, we can hardly go amiss of the illus- 
trations in proof of them, to whatever part of human 



GOD IN HUMANITY 



313 



history or society we turn. Look at the progress 
of human society itself, — 'its progress in knowledge, 
in intellectual grasp and power, in natural science, in 
the arts, in political and social morality, in every- 
thing that concerns the well-being of man. How 
has it all been effected ? Not certainly for man by 
a power outside of him, pouring into his nature, as 
if it were simply a passive receptacle, all these pos- 
sessions and achievements of knowledge, virtue, and 
civilization ; but they have all come by the laborious 
exertion of man's own faculties, they are the grand 
result of his own putting forth of effort. They have 
not been given to him ; but he has acquired them, 
earned them. The human race did not have them 
at the start ; but they are the wages of its toil, the 
achievements of its thought and enterprise through 
all the generations of its existence on the earth. 
And they are related to the great Power that is the 
ultimate cause of all things only by the fact that it 
was in the powers that produced them. The Deity 
that has made man what he is in civilized society to- 
day has not been shaping and moulding him so much 
from the outside as from the inside. The Divine 
Power has been manifest in the human thirst for 
knowledge, in the mental effort to resist or control 
natural forces, in the long struggle of humanity, and 
in the impulse at the bottom of the struggle, out 
and up from material and barbarous conditions of 
existence into a life of mental enjoyment and of 
social justice and love. We may say that Deity has 
done it. Yes ; but it is Deity that had incarnated 
itself in the human race, that wrought in and 



314 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



through the very substance of the human faculties, 
that assumed flesh and became man himself. 

Or look for illustration at some special points in 
the history of human society. The time was when 
bodily ailments and diseases were regarded as a 
direct visitation upon man from Heaven, either as a 
penalty for some sin or as a discipline for his faith. 
No one thought of tracing any connection between 
them and broken natural law. The remedy for 
them was to be found in prayer, in faith, in the 
impartation of some mystical spiritual virtue through 
the touch of a holy person or holy object. This 
doctrine of disease is taught in the New Testament. 
Now, a wiser knowledge is able to track physical 
diseases to human and finite sources, and only the 
most superstitious connect them with supernatural 
agencies, either as to cause or cure. The belief 
lingers, indeed, even in minds tolerably enlightened, 
that diseases are specially sent upon mankind for 
spiritual discipline ; yet I have noticed that even 
such devotees of the old belief do not shrink from 
resorting to the common human and finite remedies, 
instead of the old prescriptions of prayer and relig- 
ious penance, for ridding themselves of the disorders 
and the discipline together, — a symptom that the 
old idea is fast vanishing. The modern mind finds 
the seeds of bodily disease and suffering in some 
violated law of nature, — violated either wilfully or 
ignorantly or unavoidably, — though not always vio- 
lated personally by the sufferer : he may suffer for 
another's transgression. It finds the cause in bad 
ventilation, defective drainage, unwholesome food, 



GOD IN HUMANITY 



315 



in false fashions of dress, in intemperance, licen- 
tiousness, and other abuses of physical appetite, — 
in short, in the thousand ways of physical neglect 
and abuse by which human beings, consciously or 
unconsciously, violate sanitary laws. And as the 
human mind has found the cause of physical disease 
within the finite conditions of existence, so it has 
found the remedy there. Since the cause is the 
violation of natural sanitary laws, the remedy, a 
preventive as well as cure, must be the knowledge 
and observance of those laws, with such temporary 
alleviation as medical science may be able to render 
by counteracting an evil already done. Here, then, 
is a plain case — and it is no small or trivial case, 
this whole vast region of human physical disease and 
woe — where it is now pretty generally admitted that 
man is his own providence, his own savior. To call 
upon an Almighty Power in the heavens to avert 
sickness or to change its results, to stay the ravages 
of a pestilence, to keep the cholera from a city, is 
beginning to be regarded by sensible and thinking 
people everywhere as the relic of a superstition 
which must soon take its place with many other 
beliefs which the world has outgrown and left be- 
hind. It is beginning to be seen that the Power has 
not' to be summoned from afar, but is already here ; 
that it has first made its presence known by the 
disorder and pain that have ensued on the infringe- 
ment of some law of nature ; that its presence is in 
that law, bruised and broken and indeed sinned 
against ; that it is also in the human knowledge that 
has detected the fracture and raises the wholesome 



3i6 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



warning of obedience ; in the science that sends out 
missionaries into regions of contagion in the shape 
of disinfectants, and that has unfolded the moment- 
ous law of heredity and discovered antidotes for ex- 
orcising the demon of poison from diseased blood ; 
in the public sentiment that establishes Sanitary 
Commissions and Boards of Health, and demands 
that streets shall be sewered and swept, domestic 
premises be kept pure and sweet, and people be 
taught to obey the laws of cleanliness. But not 
only in these channels flows the Power that is a 
providence for man in his struggle with physical dis- 
ease. We may find it also in more tender guise : 
in the faithful nursing and watchful care of human 
sympathy ; in woman's gentle fidelity in the sick- 
room ; in her instinctive tact and the magnetic virtue 
of her presence and touch ; in the unwearied, patient 
devotion of a wife's, sister's, or mother's love, which 
often, by its very unweariedness and patience, saves 
the sick from the grasp of death. So that this is 
a view of Providence of which it cannot be said that 
it is all the cold operation of law : the great element 
of love comes into it, and is at the very bottom of 
it, — all the warmth and tenderness of the purest, 
richest, human love, — of that love which is "the 
fulfilling of the law." 

And what has here been said of the way of Provi- 
dence in dealing with man's physical diseases and 
infirmities might, with a slight change of words, 
be applied with equal truth to man's moral con- 
dition and progress. The great law holds good 
here : that every violation of the principle of right, 



GOD IN HUMANITY 



317 



every departure from virtue, brings, in some shape, 
the retribution of pain, — brings moral disease and 
disorder. The disease and pain do not come by 
any arbitrary fiat of a distant Deity seated on a 
throne in the upper heavens, but they come as the 
natural consequence of the moral transgression : 
they are the direct effect of an evident cause ; and 
the Deity, the divine principle and providence, is 
there on the spot in that pressure of natural energy 
which inherently impels a cause to its effect. The 
Providence is in the warning given by the moral 
pain, — in the remorse, the stricken conscience, the 
loss of self-respect and of others' approbation, — 
to indicate that there has been moral disobedience ; 
a warning given, therefore, in mercy to turn the 
transgressor back to virtue and to moral safety. 
The husks, the hunger, the swine for company, 
the disappointment and disgust of the prodigal 
son in Jesus' immortal parable, were the natural 
result of the vicious prodigalism to which he had 
yielded ; yet there was a providence in them, — 
a providence inherent in the very severity of their 
discipline, — since they drove him back "to him- 
self " and to the ways of righteousness. The Prov- 
idence is in the law by which "whatsoever a man 
sows that shall he reap," and whereby "the way 
of the transgressor is hard " ; and in the further 
law that, when man is warned by the hardness of 
his evil way, warned by penitence and remorse, 
of his transgressions, every effort which he then 
makes in virtue, every struggle against temptation, 
every step he takes in the returning way, will help 



3i8 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



to bring him back to moral health and peace. The 
power of help, like the power of retribution, is no 
mysterious Being far away, acting through the 
proxy of some transaction of atonement, but there 
right at the spot of need, — in the penitence that 
first turns his heart homeward to virtue, in the 
aspiration and hope that light the way for him, 
in the very strength of the moral exertion by which 
he takes the steps that one after another are surely 
bringing him back. 

But does all this, though it may be efficacious, 
seem cold ? Law again, but no love ? See, then, 
how this same Providence, this Divinity in humanity, 
becomes love! See it in the yearning tenderness 
of a mother's love, who, if she be the true human 
mother, never forsakes her prodigal son, but follows 
him into whatsoever wearisome deserts of vice he 
may wander. Or see it in the more general philan- 
thropy that is seeking in all the dark and squalid 
corners of society the welfare of human beings. It 
is Divine Love that thus works in the love of man 
for his fellow-man, — that goes down into the places 
of poverty, vice, bondage, and crime, to carry, if pos- 
sible, some comfort, to lift up, if possible, the most 
degraded human beings into a capacity for a pure 
enjoyment and into a place of moral health. It is 
Divine Love that is working through the efforts of 
benevolent men and women to put down intemper- 
ance, and to check the "social evil," and to emanci- 
pate human beings from every form of slavery, and 
to bring into human society the elements of justice 
and brotherhood. It is through this love of man for 



GOD IN HUMANITY 



319 



humanity that Universal Love manifests its provi- 
dential care, and gets its purposes for human welfare 
accomplished. 

Behold the same providential aim, again, in differ- 
ent phase, — in the love that founds the home and 
provides for the family and permeates the household 
with all pure affections ; in the love that shines out 
of the face of human friendship ; and in that, too, 
which draws neighbors together in intelligent, help- 
ful sympathy. What shall we say, also, of that pas- 
sion for the truth which often comes into the human 
heart, that devotion to the right, that fidelity to con- 
viction and conscience, whereby a man will endure 
peril and torture, and go down to death before he 
will swerve one jot from that which he believes to 
be the line of rectitude ? What shall we say of the 
martyr souls of humanity, — those who face the dun- 
geon, the gallows, the cross, or all the promises and 
frowns of the world, and still stand with manly up- 
rightness to say or do the thing that seems to them 
right and true ? Or of that later type of martyr 
spirits, blossoming right out of the materialistic en- 
terprises of this business-devoted age, — the railroad 
engineers, brakemen, sea-captains, who, with their 
train or ship rushing into the very jaws of destruc- 
tion, have stood unflinchingly at their posts of duty, 
and gone down to death with their hands still clinched 
to their tasks and their nerves serene with heroic 
self-command, — saving others by their calm courage 
and lofty presence of mind, while themselves they 
could not save ? What can we say of any such deeds 
but that they are an exhibition in humanity of the 



320 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



Eternal Power that makes for righteousness ? A 
miscreant places a rail across the track in front of 
an approaching express train. The engineer, as he 
rounds a curve, sees it and the awful peril, throws 
his whole strength into one Titanic effort, reverses 
his engine, and brings the train to a stop just as the 
obstruction is grazed. The newspapers report it as 
a miraculous escape. But the miracle was all in the 
virtue of the Westinghaus brake and in the alert- 
ness of the engineer's brain and the skilled strength 
of his arm. The passengers go on, rejoicing in their 
safety, while the hero who has saved them is taken 
from the train scalded nigh to death by the escape 
of steam caused by the very success of his exertion. 

Illustrations like these, which might be indefi- 
nitely multiplied, make clear how it is that Deity 
manifests his power for human benefit and what is 
the main method of Divine Providence for man's 
guidance and protection. The great sanitary and re- 
demptive resources, whether for physical or moral 
good, are stored within the human faculties, and 
are made effective through human activity. The 
divine energies are wielded through the human. 
They are involved in the very substance of human 
thought and forethought, sagacity and skill ; in 
human courage, bravery, virtue, and love ; in man's 
power to learn nature's laws and to put himself, 
through science and art, into harmony with them. 
Divine Providence is human providence. The 
Eternal Power cares for man, protects him, insures 
his progress, holds him, we may even say in the 
old Hebrew phrase, "in the hollow of his hand," 



GOD IN HUMANITY 



321 



but does it through that portion of the Universal 
Energy and Love which is made active in the mind, 
heart, and hand of the human race. 

Does some one ask, then, Why say " Deity " at 
all ? Why not say at once, with the Positivists, that 
Humanity is our God ? Because, let me say in con- 
clusion, when man finds a firm basis for his knowl- 
edge ; when he adheres by an inward necessity to a 
conviction of truth ; when he stands up courageously 
to defend the right and to keep his virtue ; when, 
resisting temptations of selfish ease or pleasure, he 
shapes his actions by a pure impulse of love and 
charity ; when he plants his feet so solidly at the 
post of duty that no threats of peril nor bribes to 
ambition can move him from his rock of conscience, 
— then he feels that he is acting with the strength 
of a power which, though it may manifest itself 
through his perception of truth and his individual 
adherence to right and goodness, is yet not of him- 
self nor limited by himself, but is at the very basis 
of the universe and coterminous with the realm of 
all existence ; because he is conscious that he is the 
instrument of a purposive process, reaching out, in 
respect to its root and its goal, as far beyond any 
purpose that centres in himself as the vast universe 
of matter extends beyond his little body of flesh ; 
because he is conscious that his life, material, men- 
tal, moral, is but a part of the larger life of humanity, 
to which he is harmoniously or inharmoniously re- 
lated in proportion as he follows or does not follow 
this inward monitor of truth and duty ; because he 
is conscious that humanity itself, with all its achieve- 



322 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

ments, with all its capacities and possibilities, is but 
a little larger part of the vast grandeur of the stu- 
pendous system of the universe, which in all its 
parts is animated with one life, by one power; and 
because he must needs believe that beyond and 
above humanity there may be other races of finite 
beings, as above our earth there are other and innu- 
merable worlds, and that through all these infinite 
ranges of worlds and races there runs the unity of 
one vital energy. For these reasons, he says not 
Humanity, but Deity, when he would express the 
greatness, the everlastingness, the incomprehensi- 
bleness of this Power which comes to manifestation 
in his being, and works in and through his faculties, 
and is the source of the wisdom and love that are 
the guiding providence and felicity of his individ- 
ual and social existence. Though standing in the 
strength of his own natural resources and faculties, 
and relying for present and future welfare upon 
his perfected manhood, he yet perceives that this 
strength and this manhood are but the partial rev- 
elation of a Power older and mightier than himself, 
older and mightier than the human race. And 
hence, before the unifying Energy that is working 
through the inconceivable vastness of things, he lifts 
his eyes in adoring wonder, and exclaims, " O God, 
I too, a speck of conscious dust, am thrilled with 
life from Thee ! " 



October 10, 1880. 



XXII. 



THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY. 

" Possessions vanish and opinions change, 
And passions hold a fluctuating seat ; 
But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken 
And subject neither to eclipse nor wane, 
Duty exists." 

\V. Wordsworth. 

"What Morality have we left?" is the title of 
a bright article in the North American Review for 
the current month,* satirizing those modern ethical 
theories (and particularly the system of Herbert 
Spencer) which many persons think are destined to 
supplant the old theological theory of morality as the 
revealed law of God. My answer to the question 
would be : I admit to some extent the force of this 
satirical criticism, though wholly ready to maintain 
that morality must find some other than a theolog- 
ical basis, and yet we have all the morality left in 
the world that there ever was, and a still growing 
quantity of it. 

But morality and its foundations have been so 
implicated with certain theological creeds, the teach- 
ing has been so prevalent and dominant that the 
moral law is the directly revealed will of God, and is 
enforced by a supernaturally decreed system of re- 

*May, 1881. 



324 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



wards and punishments extending through all eter- 
nity, that it is not strange, when modern philosophy 
ventures to pronounce these positions untenable and 
it is plain, on all sides, that the old theological 
creeds are nearing their downfall, if there should 
be anxiety and alarm lest the very bulwarks of 
morality are to be undermined, and public and pri- 
vate virtue are to collapse. Nor should it surprise 
us if there should ensue some actual evil on this 
account, some temporary confusion of moral ideas, 
some lapses from moral conduct on the part of 
people for whom the old moral standard has been 
loosened by the loss of their old religious faith and 
who have not yet found any new standard either 
of religious or moral faith. It should not surprise 
us if some people should say — some are already 
saying it — that the moral law is just like religious 
belief : it is only this or that man's opinion ; it has 
no authority over others ; it is only individual and 
relative ; there is nothing absolute and unchangeable 
in it ; at best, it is only the aggregate voice of the 
strongest number of opinions ; as a late writer ex- 
presses it, it is only what " society " at this moment 
may happen to demand of me. And, when morality 
is believed to be nothing more than this, — required 
conformity to the voice of public opinion, — there 
arises, naturally, in the human breast a feeling of 
rebellion to it. Public opinion may be a tyranny. 
What right except that of might have the majority 
of opinions to rule the minority ? Why is not my 
opinion of what I may do as good as my neighbor's ? 
Why should I act to please him, and not myself? 



THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 325 

Why not make my own interests and happiness the 
law of my action? Of what concern is it toothers 
what I may do, so long as my action does them no 
harm ? Why may not a man do what he pleases 
morally as well as mentally, — make a fool of him- 
self, if he chooses, — if his conduct brings no injury 
to others ? This is reducing the law of morality to 
the doctrine of extreme individualism of liberty, and 
making liberty synonymous with individual license. 
Yet such questions and reasoning may be heard ; 
they even appear in print. And there is not a little 
of this confused, clouded, and practically pernicious 
view of the moral law among people for whom the 
old theological basis of morals is gone. 

Nor should it much surprise us to find the Nihil- 
ists in Russia, or a portion of them, crying out in 
the same breath against God and against the claim 
that there is any such thing as moral right. The 
one type of theological teaching which they have 
heard is that God has revealed his will as the law 
of right through the Church, and that the head of 
the Church — God's vicegerent on the earth, some- 
times even called God himself — is the emperor of 
all the Russias, the head of a government which 
they have never known otherwise than as a per- 
sonal despotism, whose will was the law for them to 
obey. What kind of a God and what kind of a 
law of right has Russian absolute monarchy been 
teaching ? What wonder if, under such theological 
indoctrination, the Russian people, in large num- 
bers, have come to confound the very law of moral 
right with the will of the despotic government 



326 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



which has crushed them, and even the being of God 
with the tyranny they are struggling against ! Thus 
incensed, they cry out: "Away with them all, — 
Government, Church, God, the Moral Law ! To us, 
they mean but one thing, — Despotism. And des- 
potism is mental and moral despair!" Nor need it 
surprise us that something similar has occurred in 
France, where, among large sections of the working 
people, the revolt against religion has also been, to 
a large extent, a revolt against the moral order of 
society. For here, too, the morality that has been 
taught has been so implicated with a false theology, 
and has often, too, found such poor exemplification 
in the daily lives of the priesthood, and the Church 
as a whole has really done or aimed to do so little 
for the enlightenment and temporal improvement of 
the people, that it is difficult for the people to draw 
any clear line of distinction between what the 
Church has taught as theology and what it has 
taught as morality. They have a strong feeling that 
the Church, with its orders of priesthood, with its 
rich benefices, with its lavishly endowed monastic 
societies, has somehow flourished at their expense ; 
that it has neglected them, kept them poor and 
ignorant and miserable, — has, in short, been their 
oppressor and plunderer. And hence they have 
declared war against the Church and all that the 
Church stands for, without stopping to cull the evil 
from the good. They would sweep it all away, — 
theology, religion, Deity, the moral law, — level all 
to the ground, that they may begin anew with abso- 
lutely fresh materials on unencumbered premises. 



THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 327 

And yet, in spite of these evidences of a moral 
collapse of society in consequence of a growing dis- 
belief in the old creeds of religion, — in spite, too, 
of dangers nearer home that I am ready to admit 
and would not wink out of sight, — to the question, 
"What morality have we left ? " I repeat my answer, 
" All that there ever was, and a still growing quan- 
tity of it." By this, I do not mean that there may 
not be a temporary relaxation of the moral energies 
of society and a temporary depression of moral 
standards, especially in certain classes of people and 
in certain countries that have been most dominated 
by the old theologies. There have been such de- 
pressions, such temporary deflections and retrograde 
periods, in regard to morality in the past history of 
mankind. But the course of human history as a 
whole has been one of moral progress. The moral 
power at the heart of the race has always been equal 
to the emergency of overcoming and annulling any 
temporary aberrations from the line of healthy moral 
perception and conduct. And so I argue that this 
will be the case now : that there will be in human 
nature ample elasticity of the moral sentiment to 
insure recovery from any moral paralysis that may 
be caused by the decay and fall of the old theologi- 
cal basis of morality ; that morality will still survive 
all disasters, as it has hitherto, and still grow and 
progress. 

But I reach this conclusion not solely or chiefly 
by the argument of comparison with similar periods 
in the past. When I say that there is all the moral- 
ity in the world that there ever was, and that it is 



328 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

likely to advance and increase instead of being over- 
thrown, I mean that the source and vital elements 
of morality remain : I mean that the roots of it are 
not destroyed, are not touched, by any wind, how- 
ever fierce, of theological scepticism which may for 
an interval be shaking down violently some of its 
foliage and fruit : I mean that the foundations of 
morality continue the same and undisturbed, what- 
ever theological foundations may be undermined and 
whatever disturbances may ensue to those super- 
ficial ethical structures which have been confusedly 
built partly on theological and partly on moral bases. 
Genuine morality has always rested on a foundation 
of its own. Implicated with certain theological 
beliefs by the popular religious teaching, it is yet 
in reality independent of all theological beliefs, 
appears in connection with them or apart from them, 
and runs down to a root vitally its own, — and that 
root an ineradicable part of human nature itself. 
Morality is the best part of religion, but it has not 
necessarily part or parcel in any theology. And 
when the confusing teaching which has so long 
sought to make people believe that the moral law is 
an essential adjunct of certain theological creeds and 
not safely to be separated from them shall have 
passed away, and people shall be trained to trace 
clearly in their thought the moral law to its own 
simple and ineradicable root, and to trace with the 
same clearness, in respect to actual conduct, the 
practical moral law as it lies plain to sight in that 
nexus of natural vital energy which binds unerringly 
moral cause to moral consequence, then shall we 



THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 329 

have a revival of morality. That sovereignty which 
theological faith will have at last let go from its 
loosening grasp will be seized by moral faith. The 
standard of moral action will be lifted higher and 
held with firmer nerve for the guidance of the 
bewildered flocks that have lost their ecclesiastical 
shepherds. There will be fresh-voiced, clear-toned 
rallying-cries, summoning defenders for the right 
and the true ; an awakening resolution and energy 
in all the moral factors of society ; a movement 
forward of the now theologically divided armies in 
one morally united host against the forces of error 
and wrong. Then may we expect new triumphs of 
justice against long-entrenched usurpations and 
iniquities, and the acquisition for man of new in- 
dividual rights and of more equal opportunity in the 
name of human brotherhood. 

But I may be justly reminded that this is a proph- 
ecy of rhetoric, and that what is wanted on this 
question is thought and logic. Let me try, then, to 
show what appears to me to be that abiding and 
indestructible root of morality and source of all 
moral power which will remain after theological 
systems may have vanished, and which may be all 
the more clear and the more powerful when they 
shall have ceased to obscure the knowledge of it 
and interfere with the right culture of it. First, I 
cannot accept as satisfactory substitutes for the 
theological theories of ethics those revivals of old 
philosophies which are now urgently advocated and 
with considerable apparent support from the scien- 
tific doctrine of evolution, whereby the moral law is 



330 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



resolved into an inward impulsion to secure one's 
own greatest happiness or is explained on the altru- 
istic utilitarian ground of an obligation to secure the 
greatest good of the greatest number. I do not 
doubt that, when a person has reached a very high 
and refined condition of moral culture, — what we 
might call the celestial heights of morals, — his own 
greatest happiness would only be possible when he 
was making the utmost efforts for the true happi- 
ness of others. But there are multitudes of people 
who have not reached that height ; multitudes of 
people whose present and controlling idea of happi- 
ness is the satisfaction of self-interests, the gratifi- 
cation of certain personal desires and aims, the 
successful pursuit of pleasures of a merely material 
nature. With this large class of people, their ideas 
of happiness are so closely identified with the selfish 
enjoyments belonging to their low grade of life that 
they are incapable of even appreciating the motive, 
much less of acting upon it, of sacrificing their 
own present happiness for the sake of the higher 
happiness of making others happy. How are 
these people, who are living on the plane of this 
low idea of what happiness is, to be reached by an 
ethical theory which gauges moral obligation by 
an effort for personal happiness ? So, too, I do 
not doubt that the ultimate result of the highest 
moral conduct is the greatest good of the greatest 
number. But, as a practical test for ascertaining 
what course of conduct is morally required at any 
present moment, this utilitarian standard of morality 
is worthless. At the best, it can be only an approx- 



THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 33 1 

imate test, never complete and absolute. For who 
would ever be able to trace all the results of his 
proposed action so as to be competent to say what 
kind of act would effect the greatest good for the 
greatest number of people who might in some way, 
at some time near or remote, be affected by it ? If 
we had to go through with such a calculation before 
moral action, our moral action would often cease 
altogether, and could never come with that prompt- 
ness of decision on which often its whole efficiency 
depends. And, even though the experiences of util- 
ity for successive generations may have come to 
be organized in mental action as intuitions, as is 
claimed, I yet fail to see how an analysis of the ideas 
of either utility or of happiness will yield the con- 
stituent elements of the moral sense as it has devel- 
oped in the history of mankind. The essential 
elements of the idea of moral law and the essential 
elements of the ideas of happiness and of utility are, 
in my judgment, totally distinct, so that the latter 
cannot beget the former. 

Where, then, shall we find the basis or root of 
the moral law ? I find it in the native intuitive fac- 
ulty of the human mind, though not in that devel- 
oped form which the intuitional philosophy usually 
claims. The root, the ever vital germ of morality, 
is intuitive : it belongs to the human mind as such, 
to intelligence per se ; but its development has been 
under the tuition of experience. Let us see how 
these statements may be substantiated. 

According to the now commonly accepted view of 
the condition of primitive man, there was a time 



332 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



when man could hardly be called a moral being. 
The moral germ or capacity must have been within 
him, but it was unmanifested. There was only a 
fierce struggle for existence amid savage conditions 
of life. The deepest instinct was for life, — the in- 
stinct of self-preservation. Whatever threatened 
peril to life was shunned : it was an evil. Whatever 
promised help to life was sought : it was a good. 
The primitive man, thus seeking instinctively to pre- 
serve his life, would begin to classify things as good 
or evil according as they aided or hindered this 
instinct for life. And, anon, he would classify per- 
sons in the same way. If another man attempted 
to interfere with his existence, to deprive him of it, 
or to take away the things he had gathered for sus- 
taining it, the intruder was an evil man, to be 
resisted. By the very necessity of such a condition 
of existence, the first reflective act of consciousness 
on the part of the primitive man must have been 
the instinctive feeling of a right to his existence, 
and the consequent right to defend that existence 
against any external assaults. But all this might 
have gone on without any active moral sense. It 
merely classified things (and persons) as good and 
not good. But as soon as the mental perception 
came to any individual of this primitive race that, if 
another individual had no right to attack his life or 
deprive him of anything he had gathered necessary 
to life, or harm his life in any way, so he had no 
right to attack that other's life or take away his sus- 
tenance or bring any harm upon him, then dawned 
the moral sense, then began the sovereignty of the 



THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 333 

moral law. It began in the mental transference to 
another of the same kind of rights as were claimed 
for one's self ; it began in primitive man coming 
one day to think, and say to himself, " If I have 
a right to existence, then my neighbor-man there 
has a right to existence ; and, if he has no right to 
harm my existence, then I have no right to harm 
his existence." And this is a perception that must 
just as certainly have come, as soon as there was 
intelligence enough to understand the relation, as 
came the perception that two and two make four ; 
and in it is the germ of all morality. Generalized, 
it is the intuitive perception of the necessary equation 
of rights between man and man in their relations to 
each other. And this is my definition of the moral 
law. Its popular expression is the Golden Rule, 
which has appeared in substantially the same form 
in all the leading religions and nations of the globe ; 
and its most central ethical word is justice. This 
definition puts morality on a basis as absolute and 
unchangeable as that on which the science of math- 
ematics rests ; a basis independent of the variable 
phases of theological belief, and that will remain 
after all the systems of theology that have ever been 
devised may have passed away. The idea of justice 
depends on no ecclesiastical creed, nor is it imper- 
illed by any assaults upon religious faith ; and the 
intuitive idea of justice is the corner-stone of ethics. 

And, as we thus find the basis of the moral law 
in the eternal principle of equity, inevitably made 
manifest in the human consciousness when the 
mental perception came of the mutuality of social 



334 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



relations among men, so the enforcement of the 
moral law is guaranteed, perpetually and eternally, in 
the logical sequence of cause and effect. Reward 
for moral obedience, punishment for moral disobe- 
dience, are no arbitrary flat of a distant Deity, 
reserved for some spectacular judgment-day at the 
opening of the future world, but they are principles 
or laws of physical, mental, and social life that are 
working right here in this world, and in all worlds 
where intelligent beings are living and acting 
together. These laws are a part of the very 
machinery of human action. Right action produces 
some kind of good fruit as its natural consequence ; 
and wrong action produces some kind of evil fruit as 
its natural consequence. The good fruit is order, 
peace, happiness, physical health and power, mental 
and moral productiveness, — in fine, all the natural 
results of obeying natural laws of life, growth, and 
progress. The evil fruit is disorder, pain, misery, 
physical derangement, mental and moral incapacity 
and disaster, — or, in fine, all the natural disturb- 
ances, failures, and wrecks caused by a violation of 
the well-known laws of life, growth, and progress, in 
the largest sense of these words. Good action pro- 
duces ever better and larger life ; evil action is ever 
undermining the very forces of life, and tends 
toward its destruction. 

In the complicated relations and mixed activities 
of human beings under the conditions of modern 
society, of course we do not always see either moral 
obedience or moral transgression working simply by 
direct line to its appropriate natural result. In the 



THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 335 

confusion and contradiction of manifold actions 
there may be mutually neutralizing tendencies ; and 
yet the net product is the exact result of the really 
operative moral forces. And sometimes, too, there 
may be a superficial exterior action that may appear 
moral and may attain, yet also superficially, its moral 
rewards ; and this for a time may veil our eyes 
against discerning the real moral transgression of 
the actor, and also against detecting the moral degen- 
eration which is surely going on in his character and 
is the natural and unescapable result of his har- 
bored vices. But such successful concealment of 
the process does not prevent the operation of the law 
of cause and consequence. It is just as impossible 
for a man to continue to do evil, however secretly, 
and still keep his nature good, and so go on per- 
petually to receive the rewards of goodness, as it is 
for a thorn-bush to bring forth grapes or a bitter 
fountain to give sweet water. At some time, — 
though possibly not in this world, and yet most 
likely even here, — all these disguises must drop 
away, and the character stand alone in its naked- 
ness for just what it is, with no capacity for any 
companionships or enjoyments that are not in 
accordance with its own nature. But even if the 
disguises remain, though they conceal, they do not 
heal the moral disease nor stay the constant de- 
crease of moral power within. No disguise is thick 
enough to evade the piercing sharpness of that pun- 
ishment. Equally impossible is it for the character 
of genuine virtue to miss its highest rewards, how- 
ever outward appearances may seem to belie the 



336 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



rule. It may be easy to take away from the deserv- 
ing some outward crown of happiness and to press 
a wreath of thorns in its place. But it is the lot 
of the most virtuous that they care the least for 
the outward crowns, — '■ that they are simply content 
with virtue itself ; and there is no force in the uni- 
verse that can rob them of that highest possible 
reward which can be accorded to any finite soul, — 
the growing power for virtue and diminishing sus- 
ceptibility to any kind of evil influence. 

Here, in this natural system of moral reward and 
retribution as the necessarily distinct and legitimate 
consequences of certain contrary courses of action, 
shall we find all needed sanctions for the practical 
enforcement of the moral law. And, when the theo- 
logical theories of ethics, with their reliances upon 
methods of outward atonement for removal of moral 
guilt, with their decrial of personal righteousness as 
of less importance to salvation than mental faith, 
with their appeals to escape some indefinite curse 
and wretchedness in the world to come rather than a 
very palpable curse and wretchedness here and now 
as the result of violating laws of right, — when these 
theories shall have ceased to obscure and obstruct 
the natural moral vision of mankind, it will become, 
not as is sometimes said, more difficult, but really 
more easy, to appeal to moral motives in the conduct 
of life and to do it genuinely and effectively. Then 
will it be seen, as never before, that mankind is re- 
sponsible for its own condition ; that into the hands 
of human beings themselves, through their rational 
intuition of right in their relations with each other, 



THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 337 



through their capacity for intelligent understanding 
of nature's laws and their obligations of reason and 
conscience to co-operate with them, have been com- 
mitted the progress, the happiness, the destiny of 
the human race. 

More than ever, perhaps it will be charged, does 
this philosophy reduce human sentiment and con- 
duct to "mere morality." It is a view of the 
moral law that does, indeed, detach morals from 
theology, but not necessarily from religion. Rather 
does morality, thus considered, blossom into relig- 
ion. The moral law is detached from the outward 
authority of Mount Sinai revelations, from the 
dogmas of miraculous births and Mount Calvary 
atonements; but it is not detached from, but rather 
more fully identified with, the supreme aim and 
movement of the universe. Here, therefore, the 
central thought of our theme opens toward a 
higher sweep and wider horizons. What is religion 
in its strictest yet most generic sense but this : 
inwardly, in each individual mind, the feeling of 
relation toward a Universal Power and Law ; out- 
wardly, individual conduct in the service of that 
higher Law rather than of selfish aims ? The moral 
law, in the dim primeval ages, had its prophetic 
germ in the instinctive feeling of the individual 
man that he had a right to life and whatever was 
necessary to life's preservation. When the mental 
sense perceived that others had equally the same 
right, then individual men found themselves in- 
wardly constrained to respect this right in one 
another. Thus, the germinal instinct of self-preser- 



338 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



vation opened into conscience, — a common knowl- 
edge and confession that preservation was the 
equal right of all. But all this was on the lowest 
plane of life, — the plane of mere material life. 
That was what life first meant, — the perpetuation 
of physical existence and physical gratifications. 
But, as humanity progressed in development, higher 
and higher grades of life were discerned, — the life 
of the affections, sympathies, and charities, the life 
of thought, the life of inquiry and search after truth, 
the life of equity, justice, and rectitude; in short, 
the affectional, mental, moral life. And then, too, 
it became evident that man attained his richest and 
most satisfying manhood when he lived not in and 
for the body merely, but for the preservation of this 
higher life of mind and heart and soul ; and that the 
lower forms of life must always be subordinated, 
often sacrificed, to the higher ; that sometimes even 
the existence of the body, or the individual physical 
life, must be yielded up, in order to save the higher 
life of the mind's integrity or the heart's purity. 
And, when this point is reached, it is but a step 
to the central seat of the most genuine religion, — 
to the conviction that it is not the individual in- 
terest, the individual life, that the great world- 
process is bent toward sustaining and preserving, 
but some universal interest and life which the in- 
dividual was meant to share and stand for and 
promote ; but a step to the spirit that cries to the 
Law of Truth and Righteousness, "Though thou 
slay me, yet will I trust thee"; but a step to the 
practical devotion which, in utter self-forgetfulness, 



THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 



339 



loses life to find it again in the finer, larger truth 
and in the bettered condition of humanity. And 
this is religion. 



May 22, 1881. 



XXIII. 



THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT. 

" A thinking man is the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can 
have." — T. Carlyle. 

Last Sunday, I gave you what all, I suppose, 
would acknowledge to be a " practical sermon." It 
was concerned directly and solely with conduct and 
those springs of conduct that exist in the impulses 
and affections of the heart. It had nothing to do 
with theories or speculations or intellectual beliefs, 
except by implication to condemn them as tests of 
conduct and character. To-day, I am to give a 
sermon which may seem to some persons, at first 
glance, to be inconsistent with the tenor of my 
teaching a week ago, — a sermon on the Practicality 
of Thought. I propose to defend thought as an ele- 
ment of religion, even when it is largely concerned 
with considering theories and determining intellect- 
ual beliefs. 

Yet there is no real inconsistency between the 
two positions. However strongly we may urge the 
conduct-side of religion, — so strongly that, when we 
hear a discourse with specially apt emphasis pre- 
senting that side, we are moved to exclaim : " That 
is all there is that is vitally practical about religion, 
all that is of any account ; let us have that, and we 



THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 34I 

may let all the beliefs and creeds and speculations 
concerning religion go," — I say, however strongly 
we may urge this view, and maintain (and maintain 
truly) that preaching should be directed to this end, 
yet it may also be maintained, and with equal truth, 
that behind this conduct-side of religion there must 
be a solid, substantial thought-side, to give the con- 
duct-side legitimacy. Conduct must have beneath 
it a logical basis of rationality, or else it lacks valid- 
ity. It may not be always necessary, and often it 
detracts from direct practical effectiveness, to point 
out in detail the separate layers of this groundwork 
of sound reasoning; and yet it is there, if the con- 
duct be true. It may have become so inwrought 
into the mental temperament as intuition and in- 
stinct that it may be appealed to more effectually in 
many cases without the construction of a logical 
syllogism ; and that kind of direct moral presenta- 
tion of the conduct-side of life is apt to be regarded 
as more practical, simply because it is more direct. 
But the thought-side is also practical. As an ele- 
ment in the progress of religion, even of what is 
called practical religion, thought is eminently the 
active power that effects the progress. Mankind 
would now be bowing down before idols of wood and 
stone as an act of religion, instead of doing right- 
eousness, had not rational thought come in to clear 
away the superstitions on which idol-worship rested. 
And even at this day there are many superstitious 
beliefs which, with vast multitudes of people, are 
standing in the way of their seeing that the purest 
practical religion is the doing of righteousness. 



342 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



Only the dispelling of ignorance, only the enlighten- 
ment of thought, can do away with the worship of 
beads and Bibles, and bring in the higher worship 
that is in spirit and truth. 

The Practicality of Thought, — that, then, is our 
theme to-day. Religion in its completed wholeness 
is threefold. It is thought, it is sentiment, it is 
action. There may be a question whether it begins 
with thought or with sentiment, but there can be 
no question that its proper end is action. My own 
idea is that the elements of thought and sentiment 
appear together; that, if what may be called senti- 
ment, or feeling, be excited in the beginning of 
religious development, whether in the race or in 
the individual, there must immediately arise some 
thought, some conception, of the object of the feel- 
ing, though it may be a very rude and very inade- 
quate conception. Or, if anything gives rise to 
some conception or thought of a mysterious power 
external to man, such as has usually been the object 
of religious contemplation, then of necessity some 
feeling immediately arises toward this power, — a 
feeling corresponding with the thought. If the 
thought be chiefly of a being of terrible majesty 
and might, then the feeling will be chiefly one of 
fear and awe ; but, if the thought be of a being 
of loving kindness and tender mercy as well as of 
power, then the feeling will partake largely of 
gratitude and love. So these two, sentiment and 
thought, go together. In the development of relig- 
ion, they are simultaneous and reciprocal in their 
operation ; and action, which comes after, is their 



THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 343 

legitimate product. Unless they result in action, 
they are sterile, and their existence is in vain. In 
the perfection of religious development, the three 
elements are combined in harmonious proportions. 
In this harmonious combination, sentiment is the 
impulse, thought the guide, and action the goal. 

In this arrangement, it will be seen that thought 
is the specially important element. It is that which 
connects impulse, which in itself is blind, to its 
proper consequence in deed. Without this, impulse 
might rush unguided to some goal ; but it might be 
a goal having no validity in the truth of things or 
in human benefit. If sentiment prevail with exces- 
sive preponderance in religious experience, we have 
that superlative emotional demonstration which may 
be called the hysteria of religion, — the ecstasy, 
trance, " slaying power," of the revivalistic meeting, 
where, for the time, thought and reason and even 
physical self-control are dethroned, and the resulting 
action resembles more the incoherent ravings of an 
inebriated man or the convulsions of an epileptic 
than the conduct of a rational being. Or, if senti- 
ment does not preponderate to this excess, but still 
too largely dominates, there results a type of re- 
ligion which spends itself chiefly in emotional 
religious ceremonies, and is afraid of thought as 
irreligious, and does not connect religion very dis- 
tinctly with acts of daily life. But, again, it is pos- 
sible that thought may preponderate too much over 
sentiment; and then there results a type of religion 
that may be morally correct and philosophically true, 
and yet coldly moral and true, — a religion wanting 



344 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



warmth, enthusiasm, and aspiration, and hence apt 
to be connected with a bloodless and nerveless kind 
of morality. And, still again, thought and senti- 
ment may both be intensely active ; but it is narrow 
thought and uncultivated sentiment, — the most mis- 
chievous and practically pernicious of all the possible 
combinations of the constituent elements of religion. 
Hence come the bitter spirit and deeds of sectarian- 
ism, bigotry, persecution, wars for enthroning beliefs, 
imprisonment and slaughter of bodies for the sake 
of saving souls. And the remedy is always a truer 
sentiment, that shall embrace humanity as well as 
imagined divinity, and a broader thought, that shall 
give a truer conception of divine being and divine 
law. And, yet again, what will seem, perhaps, most 
strange of all, and yet is a very common thing 
to happen, there may be religious action without 
thought or sentiment, — the result without the causes ! 
This is where religious activity has become merely 
traditional, formal, and ecclesiastical. The causes 
have existed in the past : the sentiment and the 
thought were vital in the minds of people genera- 
tions ago ; and they produced certain institutions 
and habits of action which may go on acting of 
themselves and be participated in by men and women 
who no longer believe the thought nor feel the sen- 
timent. And there is a good deal of this kind of 
religious action in the world : it is the formalism and 
hypocrisy, the crying evil, of instituted religion. 

Such, then, is the general relation of these three 
elements of religion to each other and to the com- 
pleted fulness of religion, whether historically in a 



THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 345 



whole people or in individual character. And now, 
on this general basis, I wish to show how practically 
necessary is thought in this combination ; how that 
element which seems in itself to be the most specu- 
lative is in fact the most practically beneficial in the 
result. 

And first, to this end, let us look at the province 
of thought in the general activity of human life and 
work. This age in which we are living is generally 
styled a practical, utilitarian age. It is an age of vast 
material enterprises and of intense devotion to the 
physical interests of the human race ; an age of 
commerce, trade, mining, farming, manufacturing ; 
an age of scientific discovery and invention, of mar- 
vellous progress in the useful arts, and of such suc- 
cessful appliances of inventive skill to supply the 
needs of mankind as even a hundred years ago 
would have been declared simply miraculous. It is 
pre-eminently an age of activity, and of activity on 
what would have been called, in the religious phrase- 
ology of a half-century ago, the practical " worldly " 
side of human life. Of course, the age has other ac- 
tivities. But it is, by distinction, an age of practical 
affairs more than it is religious, more than it is liter- 
ary, more than it is philosophical, more than it is 
poetic or musical or aesthetic in any form ; more 
than it is military, frequent and bloody as its wars 
are ; more, even, than it is moral or philanthropic. 
It is a commercial, utilitarian, business-devoted, sci- 
ence-learning, and art-inventing age, — an age of ac- 
tion and practicality per se. But where is the root of 
this action ? It is in thought. It is in the human 



346 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



mind. The activity is not blind, unguided move- 
ment. If it were, it would not hit the mark of ac- 
complishment so generally and precisely as it does. 
The things achieved are thoughts in somebody's 
brains before they are even begun. The practicality 
in all its phases, from the sailing of a ship to the dis- 
covery of a planet, is originated and directed by 
thought. Thought is applying itself to different 
problems than used to absorb the greatest thinkers, 
but it is thought none the less. Instead of bringing 
out a system of theology like Calvin's Institutes, it 
now brings out a steam engine. Instead of invent- 
ing a dogma for reconciling heaven and earth that 
were never estranged, it now invents a locomotive 
to go around the earth and bring into amity es- 
tranged nations. Thought is more dispersed than it 
used to be in earlier ages. It is not limited so much 
to the philosopher's brain or to the scholar's study. 
It stands with the mechanic at his bench. It is 
active in the manufacturer's brain. It throbs in the 
energy of the great magnates of the world's trade. 
It appears in miners and engineers, in the discover- 
ers and inventors, and in a host of practical workers 
all through this busy world. If the great leaders 
of thought are fewer than once, it is because the 
number of thinkers is greater. The thought-army 
is made up of brigadiers. It was thought that tun- 
nelled the Alps, and brought the lines of excavation 
from the opposite sides within an inch of each other, 
under the mighty mass of the mountain above. It 
was thought that scaled the Rocky Mountains with 
a railroad ; thought that put a whispering wire under 



THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 



347 



the Atlantic, and girdled the globe with an electric 
language ; thought that is making night like unto 
day by the electric light ; thought that has charted 
the ocean, and sails and steams across it ; thought 
that organized commerce, banking, and government ; 
in fine, it is thought that is the mainspring of all this 
bustling activity of the human world. It is thought 
that guides, controls, foresees, marks out the pathway, 
invents the machine, manages it when made, devises 
the instrumentality, and holds it to the purpose for 
which it was devised. It is thought applied to prac- 
tical problems, but it is none the less thought. In- 
deed, it is one of the standing complaints of the 
churches that the thought of men is so much ab- 
sorbed in these utilitarian and materialistic interests 
of life that little of it is left for the service of relig- 
ion, so that church pews are emj^ty and the old 
creeds go begging for believers. 

Now, if thought be so important and fundamental 
an element in the very domain of these practical 
affairs of life, much more must it hold this master 
position in those departments of life which may be 
called mental, moral, and religious. The great 
thought-producers of the world have been the in- 
spirers of human history and the sustainers of 
human action. Socrates, Plato, Kant, were mainly 
thinkers. They spent their lives in philosophy. 
Yet their thoughts have been, and still are, the sus- 
tenance of millions of minds. People who have 
never read a word that they said or wrote are yet 
mentally richer, and have had their own thoughts 
shaped and colored by the thoughts which such mas- 



348 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ter thinkers as these left behind them. It is worth 
while even for a master mind, that is sure of its 
gravitating hold on a basis of fact, to soar into the 
empyrean of theory and speculation ; for thus the 
lines of great truths are often discerned before scien- 
tific observation can climb so far, and imagination at 
least is fed, and poetry comes, if science does not. 
The heavens of science and the ideal heavens of the 
imagination have alike inspired poetic thoughts that 
are immortal. The poetry that is vital and creative 
is not the poetry in which sentiment dominates, but 
that in which the thought is as strong as the senti- 
ment. 

And, again, when we consider morality, thought 
is a most necessary, practical part of it. Even of 
the moral law, thought is as much the foundation as 
sentiment is. There is a sentiment of obligation, a 
feeling of oughtness, so to speak. Before, however, 
this feeling can arise, there is a mental perception of 
some truth that kindles it. Behind the Golden 
Rule, " Do unto others as ye would that they should 
do unto you," lies the perception of reciprocity of 
action, — the perception that the conduct which I 
demand from another as my right I owe to him as 
his right. This perception is the very root of the 
idea of justice ; and upon it has been built, layer by 
layer, story by story, the whole practical system of 
law and jurisprudence. It is but a thought ; but it 
is a thought that sustains the moral government of 
the universe, and all human governments, so far as 
they are stable and durable. And, in the moral 
problems that confront humanity to-day, nothing is 



THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 



349 



more necessary than clear and wise thought as a 
practical element in settling them. Humane senti- 
ment is good, and is needed ; but humane sentiment 
alone cannot effect a solution. Excessive amiability 
may be, indeed, a hindrance to moral reform, grant- 
ing indulgence where nature demands a retribution. 
Before such social problems as poverty, intemper- 
ance, licentiousness, criminality, while love and com- 
passion may furnish the motive power, the utmost 
wisdom of thought is required to supply the reme- 
dial instrumentality. 

When we come to religion, the practical power of 
thought is still more strongly illustrated. Behind 
all great religious movements there have been great 
thoughts. We greatly mistake, if we think that 
Christianity began mainly in a fresh development of 
religious sentiment, or that its dominant feature was 
a new kind of external religious action without any 
basis in thought. Jesus was not pre-eminently a 
thinker. He produced no philosophical system of 
thought. Yet he was one in whom thought, senti- 
ment, and action were combined in an exceptional 
degree of harmony. And as, with reference to the 
existing religion of Judaism, his action was revolu- 
tionary, so was his thought. He continually violated 
its traditions and commandments, and taught men 
so. He distinctly proclaimed the abrogation of the 
Jewish law ; and, in place of its ceremonial acts, as 
means of securing peace and blessedness, he incul- 
cated the idea of the doing of righteousness. The 
Jewish Messianic conception he adopted, but trans- 
formed it, so that it became almost unrecognizable, 



350 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



with thoughts of his own. In fine, it was from 
such ideas as these which Jesus preached, and which 
Paul and the other apostles worked over, with large 
additions, that there came that great dramatic sys- 
tem of thought which was the strong motive power 
in the organization of primitive Christianity, — the 
scheme of a second coming of Christ in the clouds 
of heaven, and of a new-made earth and a Messianic 
kingdom, in which Jesus was to reign personally 
over the living and risen saints. Here was a system 
of belief, a creed, which, though it proved to be false 
in form, held thoughts which had a mighty sway 
over the unlettered people of that time. 

Look at more recent history. The Protestant 
Reformation had its origin in the awakening of the 
human mind to a consciousness of its very right to 
think as against the authority of the Roman priest- 
hood. And, when Luther came, he rallied the re- 
formers around the idea of the Bible as the word of 
God, and each man to read and interpret it for him- 
self, as against the idea that the priest or even the 
pope voiced the word of God. Behind the Refor- 
mation was this great central thought, — the Bible, 
and the Bible only, the rule of faith and practice, 
the individual reader of it being his own interpreter. 
It is a thought which later thought has had to 
correct ; yet, for the time, it was a great step for- 
ward in intellectual development, and held the seed- 
grain from which the great Protestant movement 
has grown and spread until it has passed beyond the 
limits of a religion to become a civilization. Cal- 
vinism, again, derived its power to shape intellectu- 



THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 35 1 

ally and morally the Protestant world, for two and a 
half centuries, from its thought, — not from the abso- 
lute truth of its thought, but because it had a defi- 
nite, clean-cut, logically welded system of thought, 
put into words that the common mind could under- 
stand. Accept its premises, and you went on irre- 
sistibly to its conclusions ; and it was not until 
within the present century that its premises were to 
any great extent denied within the limits of the 
Protestant Church. This system of thought, which 
became the staple doctrine of the pulpits and the 
mental and spiritual food of the pews, and which 
was meant to be accepted on its logical merits by 
the individual men and women who heard and read 
it, trained people to intellectual and moral robust- 
ness.' Whatever may be said of its effect on the 
heart, it was a vigorous discipline of the mind and 
the conscience. By close alliance with the doctrine 
of civil liberty and political independence, it shaped 
the polity of States, settled New England, and be- 
came one of the strongest elements in practically 
moulding the political and social life of this North 
American continent. 

The practical power of thought has been shown 
again in the progress of Protestantism and in the 
overthrow of Calvinism. As Protestantism had its 
origin in the awakening consciousness within the 
human mind of its right to think, so nearly every 
new denomination or sect or religious movement 
that has come in the course of Protestant history 
has sprung out of and been rallied around some new 
thought. The thought sometimes has been poor 



352 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



and narrow ; yet it has at least shown the indepen- 
dence jof the thinker, and has sought to win its fol- 
lowers by appealing to their thinking faculty. The 
advance of Protestantism is marked by these succes- 
sive stages in the progress of thought, — when some 
new statement of truth, some new aspect of an old 
truth, some modification of an old doctrine, has chal- 
lenged the judgment of the old church, and, if not 
accepted there, has gone out to form a new church. 

The Universalist and Unitarian movements chal- 
lenged Calvinism on some of its most vital doctrinal 
points. The challenge brought fierce conflict, and 
ended with two new sects, to denote the new water- 
mark to which theological thought had risen. No : 
the conflict did not then end. The light of the new 
ideas has been reflected back upon the old denomi- 
nations that rejected them until the very doctrines 
they once excommunicated are now shaping their 
own creeds. Unitarianism, in turn, after its separa- 
tion from Orthodoxy, became too exclusively ethical 
and formal. It seemed to have spent its spiritual 
energy in a protest, and had no systematic religious 
philosophy of its own. Complaint was made that its 
sermons were good homilies enough on the plain, 
every-day duties of life, but arid and cold, without 
spiritual enthusiasm or sustenance. The Transcen- 
dental movement came with its spiritual philosophy 
and fresh enthusiasm for humanity ; and Unitarian- 
ism at first fought it, persecuted its leaders, not 
by the fagot and thumbscrew, but by ways that 
were effectual to remove some of them from their 
pulpits. Yet, in moving them from Unitarian pul- 



THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 353 

pits, it lifted them — like Emerson and Parker — 
to become teachers of the world ; and Unitarianism, 
to a large extent, though not as yet very graciously, 
has finally accepted, to save itself from inanition and 
death, the very philosophy of religion which it had 
tried to cast out with these heretics. 

And, to-day, it is thought again that is newly mov- 
ing the religious world, — thought that has sprung 
from modern science and follows its method. The 
new religious philosophy, that is certainly coming in 
place of the old philosophy of supernaturalism in all 
its forms, is not yet definitely systematized. But it 
is in the air. Its power is felt, more or less, in all 
the churches. It is newly writing the creeds. It 
moulds the Biblical criticism of the Scotch Presby- 
terian, Robertson Smith ; it revises the Bible in 
the Church of England and in the very heart of 
American Orthodoxy ; it rewrites the Bible from 
the stand-point of rational historical criticism in the 
Dutch school of theologians ; it is remoulding the 
time-honored institutions of France ; it is even felt 
by the pope in the Vatican, and keeps him on the 
eve of flight from a rebellious populace. It appears 
in the secular journals and magazines as well as in 
the religious ; in literature and in poetry quite as 
much as in the new treatises of theology. It espe- 
cially is evident in science and in a broader social 
philosophy. It is in far-off India and Japan, and 
even in stable and stagnant China and in fatalistic 
Mohammedanism. Thus, everywhere the new relig- 
ious thought is in the mental atmosphere of the age, 
dispelling the darkness of superstitions, scattering 



354 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



old errors, bringing in the light of larger truths. 
And everywhere it is shaping the faith of the future, 
— a faith which, when it comes, will be the most 
practical of all faiths, lifting the human mind into 
a grander and surer trust, laying upon the human 
heart and conscience a deeper sense of responsibil- 
ity for the world's welfare, summoning States to a 
finer justice, trade to a stricter honesty, and welding 
society into a nobler bond of human brotherhood, in 
which, at last, human shall mean humane. 



January 22, 1882. 



XXIV. 



THE GLORIOUS GOD. 

" God's glory is a wondrous thing, 
Most strange in all its ways, 
And, of all things on earth, least like 
What men agree to praise." 

This little verse was the seed-text from which this 
discourse grew ; and I cannot, perhaps, better intro- 
duce my subject than by telling you just how the 
growth started. The verse is one of five which 
stand together in our Hymn Book ; but those five 
are selected from a much larger number, and the 
hymn to which they belong was written by the 
devout Roman Catholic, Faber. Though the gen- 
eral sentiment of the hymn is one to which our 
hearts might respond, there are in it certain ways 
of explaining religious truths (I refer more especially 
to the whole hymn as Faber wrote it) which would 
hardly accord with the thought of those of us who 
are accustomed to join in these Sunday services 
here. And, in looking over the pages of our book to 
select hymns for our weekly services, I have some- 
times passed by this fine hymn, which for its general 
sentiment I wanted to take, because this verse in 
particular seemed to be contrary to my customary 
teachings. We believe, do we not, in a rational, 



35^ 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



natural religion, immediately connected with the 
practical, intelligible, every-day duties and disposi- 
tions of mankind, — a religion chiefly synonymous 
with plain, simple goodness ; with good aspirations, 
good efforts, and good conduct ; with knowledge 
of and obedience to the natural laws that are 
stamped upon, and the uplifting forces that are at 
work within, the world of matter and the world of 
man ; and such obedience, such good dispositions 
and good deeds, which, in our way of thinking, are 
the best manifestation of divine power in human- 
ity, it appears to us, men in general do " agree to 
praise," when they clearly see and understand them. 
This verse, on the contrary, seems to inculcate the 
idea of religion as something strange and foreign to 
man's natural experience ; as something to come by 
mysterious and special grace, which the natural 
reason cannot be expected to comprehend nor even 
to praise. Its key-thought, apparently, is that old 
conception of Orthodoxy, that God's revelation of 
himself, not only in history, but to the individual 
soul, is miraculous, — an interposed visitation by the 
Holy Spirit for purposes of conversion, and in 
specially providential ways not to be understood nor 
judged by human reason. And, very likely, some 
such thought as this was in Faber's mind when he 
wrote the verse. But Faber was a true poet. And 
in every true poet, religious or other, there is a pro- 
founder meaning than can be translated by any 
prose rendering. It is for this reason that many of 
the old hymns and anthems, which conform verbally 
to a theology which we discard, may yet do service 



THE GLORIOUS GOD 



357 



in the expression of a feeling that goes deeper than 
theology. And last Sunday, as I read this hymn to 
you to be sung, choosing it then as I had once or 
twice before with a silent protest against a portion 
of it, another possible meaning of this special verse 
came to me, and therewith the thought-kernel of this 
discourse, — which I bring you to-day, — over which 
I have ventured to write the words, "The Glorious 
God." 

And yet, after writing the words there, I shrink 
from the theme. Shall any one venture to sound 
the depths of that mystery of infinite being in which 
we, and this universe and all things in it, live and 
move and have our being ? Shall any finite mind 
have the audacity to attempt to portray the ways, 
the attributes, the aims of Infinite Mind ? attempt 
to talk of an existence which, by the very fact that 
we call it infinite, we admit to be boundless, inca- 
pable of being described, incapable of being compre- 
hended ? Does not the old text meet us, to forbid 
the essay at the outset, — " Touching the Almighty, 
we cannot find him out " ? We can understand how 
the believer in a miraculous revelation of Deity, the 
believer in a scheme of theology which is alleged to 
contain a celestially illuminated chart of God's 
entire nature and dealings with mankind, should 
venture to speak of his power and glory as some- 
thing which man can define and describe. But how 
can one to whose thought Deity is and must be, by 
the very necessity of the case, largely hidden, one 
to whom infinite Being means literally and actually 
unbounded and illimitable being, — and the unfathom- 



358 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



able unknown must ever be more than the known, — 
how can such a one dare to attempt any expression 
of such a thought as the glory of God ? 

But, on the other hand, if we can retain, with the 
natural exercise of our faculty of reason, anything 
of the religious sentiment ; if we are to define relig- 
ion as anything more than or different from morality, 
then it is necessary that there should remain some 
such thought as this ; and, if the thought, then also 
some possible way of giving it utterance. Words 
may not utter it fully, — this thought of the possible 
divine glory : music may often sound its depths 
deeper than words. Yet words may suggest the 
interpretation, even though not able to make it 
complete. And at this day, when positive knowl- 
edge is our boast and the tendency is so strong to 
confine thought to the limits of the world of phe- 
nomena ; at this day, when we go to the scientists 
and the cyclopaedias to explain all the mysteries of 
the world-forces, and the theologies in which we 
were bred are vanishing like the fairy stories of our 
childhood, and what we once read as history is 
turning into uncertain tradition and legend and 
myth ; at this day, when the archaeologists and 
biologists are following back the trail of unbroken 
evolution in the history of man and the history of 
the planet he occupies, for vast ages back of the time 
where we used to put creation, and the words " he- 
redity " and " law " and " force " are applied as labels 
to whole regions of life formerly thought to be under 
the direct control of a personal deity ; at this day, 
too, when, on the other hand, what cannot be thus 



THE GLORIOUS GOD 



359 



studied and explained, mapped and labelled as posi- 
tive knowledge, is apt to be put aside as unworthy of 
consideration among practical men and women, — 
as a country not only unexplored, but unexplorable, 
not only unknown, but unknowable, — amid such ten- 
dencies of thought, there is some danger that not 
only much of the mystery, but much of the beauty, 
poetry, and power of uplifting sentiment, which have 
been associated with religious ideas, will also vanish. 
I think it very necessary, therefore, that those of 
us who accept the results of the new science and of 
the new methods of studying man's history on the 
earth should be ready to set forth, if we can, any 
truer and grander thought of Deity which may have 
come to us in lieu of the old theological conceptions 
which science has displaced. 

And we may say, in the first place, that our 
thought of the divine power and glory meets the 
test of the verse that is our text in this, — that it is, 
of all things, " least like " what men in general, 
thinking of that power and glory, " agree to praise." 
What is the idea of God held by the vast majority 
of the people of Christendom ? It is the idea of an 
Almighty Being seated in majesty and magnificence 
on a throne above the skies, after the pattern of a 
human sovereign, touched with paternal benignity, 
but ruling the world from that distant heavenly 
throne by a double system of laws and special provi- 
dences. It is of a being who made this universe in 
the first place either out of his own nature, calling 
the very atoms of matter into existence, or out of 
material atoms existing co-eternally with himself, — 



360 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



building it thence as a master mechanic fashions a 
machine, — and who then impressed upon it the laws 
and forces necessary to keep it in operation and 
peopled it with living creatures, while he retired to 
his celestial abode to govern it henceforth by these 
general laws and by occasional startling interven- 
tions of supernatural power. It is of a being who, in 
primitive ages, visited the earth in the form of man, 
walked upon its surface, talked with its first inhabi- 
tants, commanded them what to do and from what 
to abstain. Ay, it is of a being who was once born 
on this earth of a human mother, and grew here 
from babyhood to manhood, and then lived for a 
brief time a devoted life of goodness, and was put 
to death on a cross, and ascended again to heaven, 
where he remains to judge the world of mankind 
as death shall summon them before him. This is 
the central conception of Deity believed in by the 
great majority of the Christian populations of the 
earth. And this, with its various accessories of 
creative and sovereign power, of monarchical mag- 
nificence, of arbitrary judgment mingled with pater- 
nal compassion, of almighty will and all-knowing 
wisdom, is what the mass of the people in Christian 
congregations "agree to praise" in their worship. 
Or go into other religions, the same anthropomor- 
phic idea of God prevails. It is God a great and 
powerful ruler, a king, at best a sovereign father ; 
God, too, who once lived on the earth in the form of 
man, or perhaps even lives there to-day (like the 
Grand J^ama of Thibet), surrounded with power and 
arrayed in the habiliments of glory. 



THE GLORIOUS GOD 



361 



But the divine glory that we would seek is, of all 
things on earth, least like what these people have in 
mind as God. We do not look for it in the god 
Jupiter, nor the god Jehovah, nor the god Osiris, nor 
the god Thor, nor the god Brahma, nor the god 
Jesus. All these were honest and sincere but in- 
effectual attempts to express the inexpressible, to 
define the undefmable, to personify an existence and 
power which in its essence must forever remain 
above all human conceptions of personality. They 
served their historic time and purpose. They 
marked some aspect and direction of human thought 
in its effort to grapple with the problem of the ulti- 
mate cause of things. They were reaches after the 
Divine, approaches toward it, but none of them re- 
vealed the fulness of its glory. In all the religions, 
and in Christendom especially, people have been too 
much wont to glorify their own metaphysical specu- 
lations about Deity, their own mental conceptions of 
him ; to take these as his revealings, and to pass by 
the actual revelations of divine power going on right 
around them. What a vast amount of religious en- 
ergy and devotion, for instance, has been spent in 
setting forth the glory of the Divine nature and work 
according to the purely metaphysical conception of 
the triune personality of the Godhead ! The asser- 
tion may be safely risked that no person ever suc- 
ceeded in getting a logical, rational idea of this doc- 
trine. Indeed, the last resort of all argument upon 
it has always been that it is a doctrine not to be 
understood by reason, but to be accepted by faith. 
But the time has passed when any considerable num- 



362 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ber of thoughtful minds, awake to the thought of 
this new age in which we are living, can be content 
to look for the divine glory in these metaphysical 
creeds wherein men have put their own conceptions 
of Deity ; or in any names, however sacred and an- 
cient, which have survived from man's earnest but 
futile effort to define and personify the power in 
which and by which and amid which he felt that his 
own being was embosomed and kept in existence. 

" The glorious God," — where, then, shall man 
look for the living counterpart, if there be any, of 
this thought ? Where but in the universe — this 
universe of nature and man — which is the only pos- 
sible presentation of divine power that comes within 
our knowledge ? This universe is itself the shining 
garment by which the divine power is made visible. 
While people have been looking away into the past 
and trying to keep hold of their belief in God by 
holding to the creeds and conceptions of him that 
were framed centuries ago, and saying to themselves 
and repeating in their churches, What a glory was 
then revealed to the world!" lo, here is the same 
God, existing apparently as he has always existed, 
working as he has always worked, right in the famil- 
iar scenes of nature and human life, close around us 
every day. It is not because the divine glory is so 
far off that it is becoming dimmed, but we miss 
seeing it because it is so near. Let us lift two or 
three of the curtains from these hiding-places among 
the every-day facts of our lives, — just lifting a little 
the drapery of these very phenomena with which 
science deals, and in the knowledge of which we 



THE GLORIOUS GOD 



363 



have such an advantage over the ancients ; and 
becaitse of our knowledge of which it is sometimes 
boasted that we have no occasion for any God at all 
this side of that curtain of the absolutely unknow- 
able which can never be lifted at all. If I mis- 
take not, we shall find the glory, " wondrous" and 
" strange in all its ways," shining all around us, just 
behind and through the most known and familiar 
things. 

Every year, before the winter has loosed its icy 
grip upon the earth, you begin to see the animal 
wonder of a new spring-time. Under sheltering 
fences or the sunny side of your houses, and close 
up to the warm stones of your doorstep, which have 
been heated all day in the March sun, you may have 
seen the grass springing up and putting on its dress 
of living green. It was the first streaks of the 
dawn of that coming glory of life and color, of leaf 
and flower and fruit, which in a few months are 
spread over all this northern zone of earth. It 
comes so steadily and surely, and we have become so 
accustomed to its coming year after year, that we do 
not see the wondrousness of it as we should, were 
our eyes to behold it for the first time. Could we 
see it for the first time, indeed, we should stand 
amazed, if not worshipful, before the spectacle of 
the awakening life and beauty. And you say, too, 
that you know the cause of it, — that the earth in its 
annual circuit round the sun turns at this season its 
northern hemisphere, by reason of the angle between 
its equator and the ecliptic, more directly to the sun's 
rays, and hence receives more of the sun's heat. 



364 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



But the process is none the less wonderful, though 
you may give its reason and even scientifically an- 
alyze all the details of it from beginning to end. It 
is, to begin with, a sufficiently stupendous fact that 
that luminary in the heavens, ninety-two millions of 
miles away, should be the yearly incubator of life on 
this planet. What is the secret power behind that 
glory ? But the process of it, as science unfolds it, 
is a tale more wonderful than any legends of genii 
or deities which the old mythological religions taught 
or stories of fairy spirits that belong to nursery lore. 
How is that blade of grass at your doorstep linked 
with the sun ? Mechanically, by a gossamer web, as 
it were, of ether, spread invisibly within our atmos- 
phere and through all the interplanetary and inter- 
stellar spaces of the heavens, and acting as the con- 
ductor of both light and heat. Heat, you know, is a 
mode of motion. In the sun, it is the resultant of 
the constant motion of the sun's constituent matter. 
This motion is transmitted — transmitted as heat — 
to the contiguous atoms of the ether, which are set 
to vibrating, and these hand it to the atoms lying 
next, and these to the next, and so on, until, pre- 
cisely as motion is communicated through a whole 
row of marbles which a boy strikes at one end, the 
heat of the sun is communicated through the ninety- 
two millions of miles of the vibratory waves of the 
gossamer web of ether, and strikes your doorstep, and 
touches the dead-looking grass-root in the crevice 
below it. And, when the sun's rays become suf- 
ficiently vertical to make this touch powerful enough, 
it starts that activity in the root which soon shows 



THE GLORIOUS GOD 



365 



itself in the green blade above and harbingers the 
spring. It sets an energy to work in those rootlets 
by which they seize from the earth and air just the 
chemical particles needed to build that green leaf of 
grass ; and these particles then are sent upward in 
the sap by the principle of a suction pump, to be 
digested and separated by the leaf itself. 

And this is an epitome of what the sun is doing 
by its magic art at every spring-time over all the ex- 
panse of the meadows and in every forest, every 
shrub and tree and bud, all round the globe. But 
more than this : the sun has been scientifically 
shown to be not only the annual renewer and pre- 
server of the vegetable life of the earth, but the 
source of all life, animal as well as vegetable, and of 
all physical power and beauty, that are anywhere 
manifest on this earth. It is Tyndall, remembering 
the law of the correlation of forces as well as this 
immediate effect of the sun's heat, who says : " The 
sun rears the whole vegetable world, and through it 
the animal ; the lilies of the field are his workman- 
ship, the verdure of the meadows, and the cattle 
upon a thousand hills. He forms the muscle, he 
urges the blood, he builds the brain. . . . He builds 
the forest and hews it down, the power which raised 
the tree and which wields the axe being one and the 
same. The clover sprouts and blossoms, and the 
scythe of the mower swings, by the operation of the 
same force. The sun digs the ore from our mines ; 
he rolls the iron ; he rivets the plates ; he boils the 
water ; he draws the train. . . . There is not a ham- 
mer raised, a wheel turned, or a shuttle thrown, that 



366 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



is not raised and turned and thrown by the sun." 
Well may this enthusiastic devotee of science add : 
" Presented rightly to the mind, the discoveries and 
generalizations of modern science constitute a poem 
more sublime than has ever yet been addressed to 
the intellect and imagination of man. The natural 
philosopher of to-day may dwell amid conceptions 
which beggar those of Milton." And to this I may 
add that, though Milton's conceptions were theo- 
logical and these are scientific, these are none the 
less concerned with Divine things. What is behind 
this glory of multitudinous life that marches over 
the earth with every spring ? Have we reached 
its primal source in the sun ? Nay : the sun is but 
the shadow of some power older and mightier still. 
The sun is but one of many millions of suns, each 
with its family of planets, which it warms and lights 
and peoples with life, and arms with power. We 
should have to lift the whole curtain of the starry 
heavens to behold the revelation of the inconceiva- 
ble glory of which the sun is but one ray. 

Let us lift another of these curtains of phenom- 
enal facts in the domain of positive knowledge. 
Many of you, I hope, have read, some perhaps have 
heard, that incomparable sermon by our friend, 
William C. Gannett, on "The Treasures of the 
Snow," — one of the four miracles of the year, he 
calls it. You who have heard it, or you who have 
read it, know with what exquisite poetic touch he 
unlocks the snow-flake, and tells what may there be 
see nunder the powerful microscope, or is scientifi- 
cally inferred from what the microscope discloses. 



THE GLORIOUS GOD 



367 



Yet, exquisite in poetic feeling and expression as is 
his description, the poetry, beauty, and wonder are 
all in the simple facts themselves. The dryest 
chronicles of science tell them all, — how every 
tiniest snow-flake is made up of crystals which are 
put together in upwards of a thousand different 
varieties of form : in prisms, three-sided and six- 
sided ; in pyramids, and in prisms capped with pyra- 
mids ; in star-shapes, the lines radiating from a 
centre of glory, star sometimes within star, and 
these within a third and a fourth ; in prisms capped 
with stars at both ends ; in fern shapes, with all the 
varieties that are found among ferns in the forests. 
But through all this mingling of different forms 
there is no disorder, no misfit. The lines, the joints, 
the angles, are all drawn with mathematical preci- 
sion. No deft fingers of the most skilled and patient 
workman in China can copy their exactness. And 
through all the variety there is identity, too. There 
is one mathematical law that pervades the whole 
structure. To quote now from my friend : " Snow- 
nature is bound by a law of sixes. The sides of 
every prism and pyramid meet at one angle, — that 
of sixty degrees or its multiples ; the rays of every 
star diverge at that one angle ; every vein upon 
those little fern leaves joins its stem at that one 
angle or its multiples. The snow-stars are all six- 
rayed or, rarely, twelve ; the centres all hexagonal. 
Watch the flakes of a whole winter's storms, climb 
Chimborazo, go to the pole, or make your mimic 
snow-storm for yourself inside a chemist's bottle, — 
never will you find a finished star with five rays or 



368 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



with seven, or with that law of the angles broken. 
The rays themselves are broken, but never that 
creative law. Bruised, shattered, huddled together, 
the snow-flakes reach us ; but, through all bruise and 
shatter, that law of sixes lies plain upon them. By 
that they are born and live and die." Well may my 
friend add, " Is it not very impressive and full of 
awe even, — these mathematics carried down to the 
microscopic measurements, — the grand legislation 
of the universe laid thus upon its invisible atoms ? " 
Surely, some power has its shechinah, not only in the 
majesty of the storm, but in this glory of every 
single snow-flake that falls at our feet or that melts 
away unseen in the air. 

Shall we lift another curtain on a somewhat differ- 
ent scene ? Look, then, at the cell from which 
comes all animal life. In its first original stage 
there is nothing to distinguish whether bird or beast 
or man is to come from it. What shall come de- 
pends on some hidden formative principle in itself, 
inherited from its ancestry, and upon the environ- 
ment to which it is to be subjected in its develop- 
ment. Suppose it is to become human. It then 
draws to itself in time, by a mechanism which man's 
inventive genius may wonder at, but cannot imitate, 
the materials for building that most consummate 
of all nature's structures, the human body. The 
animal, vegetable, and mineral worlds are drawn 
upon for tribute to build it. But, beyond all animal 
structures before it, this human body becomes a 
thinker. Its brain is not simply used instinctively 
to push its own fortunes in the struggle for a merely 



THE GLORIOUS GOD 



369 



animal existence, but it becomes an instrument of 
conscious reflection upon the very work and purpose 
of nature itself in bringing it into being. It dares 
even to assert — this human brain — that it sees 
nature's aim, understands the intelligence that is 
impressed on the snow-flake and planted in the seed 
and that struggles through all the graceful or un- 
couth forms of animal life ; and it has the audacity 
— this human brain — to say further, " I can help to 
complete this plan : I see that mathematics in the 
snow-flake means the law of justice in mankind ; 
that order in the material universe means morality 
in human society ; that the relation of mutual de- 
pendence and helpfulness evident between the forces 
of nature means brotherhood among men." And 
thus this human brain, whose pedigree thirty years 
before we could not distinguish in the cell nor whose 
future prophesy, becomes, under the laws and forces 
of its own existence, not only a thinker, but a doer 
of righteousness. Here it becomes a Plato, there 
a Washington, and there again a Jesus. And, in 
hosts of humbler men and women, it manifests itself 
in deeds of loving-kindness and tender mercies. It 
is a builder of states, a ruler of nations, a creator of 
the arts of civilization. It discovers the secrets of 
nature, learns the management of her forces, edu- 
cates and transmits its own power, organizes philan- 
thropy for the improvement and preservation of the 
race to which it belongs. The potent life -forces 
hidden in that tiny cell have unfolded into a power 
and glory that may well be called Godlike in their 
character. 



370 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



Let us draw aside yet another veil in the world of 
scientific fact, and one behind which is promised a 
near view — almost, indeed, a veritable revelation — 
of the central mystery of life itself in its most ele- 
mental forces. A few years ago, the scientific jour- 
nals were thrilling with fresh interest over a new 
discovery. It seemed as if, at last, human research, 
through the agency of the microscope, were to be 
rewarded with a sight of the primordial substance 
in which all organic life had begun, and which is 
the necessary substratum of all continued vitality. 
Protoplasm was the word coined to name this won- 
derful and unique form of matter, which appeared 
to carry in itself the " promise and potency " of all 
modes of terrestrial life. Let us look for a moment 
at its nature and habits through the eyes of a man 
of science. Putting under the lenses of a powerful 
microscope a section of the leaf of an aquatic plant 
peculiarly adapted to disclose the protoplasmic life- 
current, and supposing his readers to be gazing at 
it with him, a scientific professor* says : " You be- 
hold a series of cells. But through the thin wall of 
any cell appears a flowing stream. ... A very river 
it seems as it rushes on, wave after wave, up from 
the depths below, across the field of vision and 
down again, over and over or round and round, in 
ceaseless rotation. Now, the current catches in its 
course this little particle, now that, hurling each 
along, now up, now down, now over, now under, 
without weariness, without hindrance, hour after 
hour before us. And now, as the stream goes on 
so grandly, think, for a moment, what it is at which 

*Prof. T. H. McBride, in Popular Science Monthly, July, 1882. 



THE GLORIOUS GOD 



371 



we gaze. We call it protoplasm ; but it is the cur- 
rent of life, the 'physical basis of life,' — the com- 
mon bond which binds in one the whole kingdom of 
organic things. Think, too, of the antiquity of that 
stream, of its lineage. The brook that ' goes on for- 
ever ' is as nothing to it ; for here the stream has 
come flowing down through ages, which are to us an 
eternity, ever since life began on earth. The moun- 
tains have been hoary with years, and have dis- 
appeared beneath the level of the all-producing sea ; 
but this stream is older than they. Continents have 
grown old, worn out, and been renewed, rebuilt from 
the debris of this same stream, and life has again 
flooded those continents ; but this stream is older 
than they. . . . [In the interminable past] the vast 
procession of life begins, rises before us, spreads 
away in variety, activity, in beauty, in wonderful- 
ness, incomprehensible." Verily, this seems like 
lifting the veil in the Hebrew temple, behind which 
was conceived to be imaged the Eternal I Am, — the 
Being that was, and is, and is to be, from everlasting 
to everlasting. 

And so we might go on, lifting the curtains from 
this familiar life all about us, and of which we are 
ourselves a part ; and on every side, from every 
nearest or remotest or obscurest corner, there would 
be revealed to us the same ineffable wonder of ac- 
tivity, of order, of arrangement, of beauty, of power, 
in the great and in the little. We need not go out- 
side of the sensible universe for the demonstration 
of a divine glory beyond anything and everything 
that the theological creeds have ever been able to 
give us in their conceptions of Almighty Being. 



372 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



But, though we thus keep within the limits of 
sensible demonstration, there is something within 
the revelation at every lifting of the curtain of phe- 
nomena which the phenomena themselves do not 
explain, — something which they suggest, manifest, 
but do not account for. There is always one secret 
unrevealed. We see into the glory, we are amazed 
and awed before it, but we see not the source of it. 
There is always one question unanswered. Touch 
nature where we will, follow science up her road- 
ways and byways in whatever direction we may, we 
shall find everywhere the wonder, the power, the 
glory ; but behind all curtains that are drawn aside 
there remains one inner curtain that is never lifted. 
Science shows us the wondrous material atom con- 
taining within itself the potency for all forms of 
organization and life, but the secret of that potency 
she does not disclose. She takes us to " vital force " 
as the formative, guiding principle in every living 
organism ; but whence and what the vital force she 
has not yet explained. Even if she prove it to be 
chemical force, that is but a step farther back. She 
carries us back to Force itself as a primordial ele- 
ment in the origin of things, to Force as eternal and 
imperishable, remaining one and the same amid all the 
changes and correlations of it in the manifold forces 
of the universe ; but she has not told us how we are 
to conceive of this mighty primal energy, in and of 
what it consists, or what the philosophy of its ex- 
istence. She points us to the infinitesimal nerve- 
cells of the human brain where this wondrous primal 
energy, after the civilizing discipline of millions of 



THE GLORIOUS GOD 



373 



generations of organic existence, sets up housekeep- 
ing as a rational thinker and a doer of righteous- 
ness. But how the connection has been established 
between the nerve-cell and the thought, and whether, 
with the dissolution of the house, the housekeeper 
also ceases existence, are problems which science 
has not solved. She bids us look at the proto- 
plasmic current in its ceaseless flux and reflux, and 
almost promises there to unlock for us the final 
mystery of the secret of life. But whence the 
beginning, what the cause of the protoplasmic cur- 
rent, she has made no revelation. We may look in 
and see, as behind a glass case, how the work of life 
goes on ; but we see not the secret power that starts 
it and sustains it. If we touch with a needle the 
wall of the current at which we have been gazing, 
thinking to investigate closer, instantly " the charm 
is broken, the mystic river ceases to flow, the tiny 
particles settle into unbroken peace." That cell, in 
fact, on which we gaze is then dead, while all the 
others remain alive ; and so the curtain falls upon 
the secret unexplained. So, turn whichever way 
we will, back of the boundless glory that we behold 
lies the mystery of a power unrevealed. 

Shall we say, then, that God is only in the hidden 
mystery ? That he is not revealed at all, because 
the very paths which are lighted for us by the glory 
lead us finally to barriers beyond which we cannot 
pass nor see ? That, because we cannot know him 
wholly, he is, therefore, wholly " the Unknowable " ? 
That he is in the infinity beyond that barrier, but 
not in the finite beauty, order, power, majesty, good- 



374 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ness, love, whose source we have traced up to that 
line ? Nay : by the very discovery brought to us 
by science, that all force or energy is one and self- 
persistent, however manifold its forms, our logical 
intellect may leap that barrier to unite the phenom- 
enal glories on the hither side and the sovereign 
substance of being unrevealed beyond in the insep- 
arable links of one all-pervading power and life. 
Life infinite and life finite are but one life, As 
one force, one law, bind together and penetrate this 
common earth which we daily tread and the heavens 
into whose star-populated depths we gaze, but which 
we can never wholly fathom, so is this whole uni- 
verse of our senses bound to and pervaded by the 
unfathomable sovereignty of being that escapes all 
tests which our senses can meet or our science devise. 

And an added glory comes into the universe of 
phenomena, because of this very mystery of sov- 
ereign being in which it is embosomed. Our world 
— this little earth — takes on dignity and majesty 
from the infinity of things, unseen as well as seen, 
of which it is a part. Imagination, reason, con- 
science, are alike spurred to finer achievement by 
the problem of the world's relation to the unseen 
Infinite ; while the heart may rest serenely upon the 
confidence, than which there can be none surer, 
that its destiny is linked with the forces which make 
the very integrity and stability of the universe itself. 
As to what is in the mystery behind him and in the 
mystery before him, man need have no fears. It is 
enough that this present circuit of life in which he 
shares, and which is flowing out of the mystery of 



THE GLORIOUS GOD 



375 



the past toward the mystery of the future, is glo- 
rious with intelligence and measured by advances in 
moral benefit. 

I have seen a child in its mother's lap gaze 
up with a sudden wonderment into the beaming 
benignity of the mother face and into the loving 
depths of the mother eyes, as if its infantile mind 
had just caught some new revelation there and was 
trying to comprehend the fulness of its meaning, — 
perhaps stopping in the midst of a frolic or of pain 
and crying, with this wondering, searching, upward 
look, and seeming to be impressed with a sense of 
a power manifest there that understood all and could 
do all and was full of good will ; then nestling down 
closer and in quiet into the mothers lap. So we are 
children still in the lap of our mother Nature. And 
sometimes we are hushed into a tender awe, it may 
be in the midst of our pains, or it may be in the 
midst of our pleasures or our work, as if a mysteri- 
ous, mightiful power were bending over and holding 
us. We lift our gaze upward to see not only that 
we are held in the embrace of Law, but that through 
Law shines the glory of Love ; and, at that answer, 
our hearts are at rest. 

April 22, 1883. 



Note. — This discourse was given first in March, 1882, but not in 
the completed form as here printed. At the date stated above, it 
was delivered, in its present form, before the " Free Religious So- 
ciety " in Providence, R.I. ; and was thus redelivered in New Bedford 
in 1884. 



XXV. 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY. 

" And, for success, I ask no more than this, — 
To bear unflinching witness to the truth." 

On Wednesday, the 28th of December, 1859, j ust 
twenty-five years ago this day, and at this hour, I 
stood here to be invested with the office of preacher 
and minister to this society. The ceremonies of in- 
duction — though considerably too long, I remember, 
for the frigid inclemency of the weather — were of 
the simple form common to the most liberal Congre- 
gational societies. The society had already com- 
pleted the contract of settlement with the candidate, 
whom it had heard and called of its own free choice ; 
and no questions were put to him concerning his 
creed or his ecclesiastical standing. Several minis- 
ters were present from this city and elsewhere, some 
of them having formerly been connected with the 
society, who conducted the services in a way that 
expressed both the natural solemn dignity of the 
occasion and the spirit of cordial good will and good 
fellowship that should exist between neighboring 
churches. Having thus been officially made your 
minister, I preached here my inaugural discourse on 
the following Sunday, New Year's day of i860. To- 
day, then, we exactly complete a quarter of a century 
of life together as people and pastor. 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 377 

A quarter of a century's ministry, — what memo- 
ries press upon me as I write those words ! Memo- 
ries that almost overwhelm the purpose which I 
have in mind to-day in this anniversary discourse. 
In these years, one generation has nearly gone, and 
another has come. Mingled with your faces as you 
sit here this morning, I see another congregation, 
more numerous than that which usually occupies 
these seats, — the congregation of our risen dead. 
They take no room among us ; but, through my mem- 
ory's eye, I see the space between these walls alive 
with the faces of this benignant company of our de- 
parted membership. But into this field of reminis- 
cence I can hardly trust myself to enter. Nor do I 
propose to-day to take up any time with the statistics 
of the parish and of parish work. The number of 
marriages and deaths in the society in these twenty- 
five years, the changes from year to year in its mem- 
bership, the condition of its benevolent agencies, 
the state of its Sunday-school, the advances which 
may have been made in the external equipments of 
the society both with regard to its Sunday services 
and its benevolent and social objects, — all these are 
matters of a certain personal and parochial interest, 
and it is usually expected that they will be brought 
forward in anniversary sermons. On previous anni- 
versary occasions, I have referred to these points, 
and at times somewhat in detail ; and to-day, though 
we have no boasts to make, the external condition 
of our society might be presented in a way of which 
we should have no cause to be ashamed. But my 
thought presses in another direction at this time. 



378 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



One remark only will I make on those matters 
which concern our external prosperity as a society, 
touching merely the one point where our affairs are 
the least promising, — the fact, namely, that the in- 
crease in the population of our city brings little or 
no increase to our numbers here, and that it is even 
doubtful whether the gradual passing away of the 
old families, from which the strength of this society 
has been largely drawn for the past sixty years, is 
made good by their descendants. Even with regard 
to this one point, it may be said that, counting our 
morning and evening services together, it is doubt- 
less true that the services of this church during 
these twenty-five years have reached and are still 
reaching a larger number of persons in the com- 
munity than has been the case in any previous 
twenty-five years of its history. And so long as the 
society has this opportunity and can wisely use it, 
there is no pressing cause for anxiety concerning the 
future. 

Leaving, then, these externals, let me proceed to 
the purpose I have most at heart on this occasion, 
which is to trace, in a measure, the more interior 
development of my ministry among you, and to sum 
up, in pretty definite shape, the convictions — the 
articles of faith, I might say — which have been the 
substance of the teachings of this pulpit during this 
period. I say " the substance of its teachings " ; for 
there has been a development — a growth, I trust — 
in my own thought within this time, so that truth 
comes to me in somewhat different form from what 
it did when my ministry began ; though this change, 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 379 

perhaps, is more marked in respect to the mode of 
statement than in respect to the substance of the 
matter stated. In some particulars, however, my 
beliefs have undergone a change, — so gradual that 
possibly it may not have been noticed by my hear- 
ers, yet a change nevertheless, — under the influence 
especially of the widening and deepening scientific 
thought of this modern era. But not to anticipate 
this point, to which I shall recur by and by, I now 
ask you to go back with me to the beginning of our 
work here together ; and if, talking on these matters 
that are so near our hearts, I make unusual use of 
the first personal pronoun, you will, I am sure, par- 
don the offence to-day. 

My ministry began near the opening of a stirring 
period in our national history. In that last week of 
December, 1859, wnen we t°°k here those mutual 
vows of trust and fidelity which bound us together 
as people and pastor, the country was flushed with 
the excitement caused by John Brown's memorable 
expedition into Virginia. That hero's life had just 
ended on a Virginia gallows by Virginia law. How- 
ever the act for which he died may be judged in the 
cold court of the prudent understanding, it was one 
of those deeds of chivalrous heroism which always 
win human hearts and kindle human consciences as 
with coals of fire from heaven. Even Virginia's 
governor was compelled, as he has confessed, to 
admire the character of the man, while he signed 
the warrant to hang him. And John Brown, dying 
on that Virginia gallows for daring to confront 
human law and human constitutions for the sake of 



3 8o 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



the slave, became the sign in the sky, by which the 
two hostile and warring ideas in the nation, liberty 
and slavery, began to gather and align their respec- 
tive hosts for the coming conflict of arms. Before 
the first year of my ministry was finished, in the ex- 
piring months of Buchanan's administration, with the 
election of Abraham Lincoln as his successor to the 
Presidential chair, we heard the ominous rumblings 
of the earthquake which soon came in the terrific 
shock of civil war, with its vast armies of national 
brothers fighting against each other, and its four 
years of battles and carnage and sorrow. And then 
when peace came, with its triumphal decree of 
emancipation to the slave, there followed the still 
longer and more anxious period of reconstruction, 
culminating in the final triumph of the ballot and of 
equal rights of citizenship before the law to black 
and white alike. 

During these two eventful periods, my ministry 
was turned largely to national questions by an in- 
ward force, a moral compulsion, which I could no 
more have resisted than I could have resisted the 
sun in his course. From the first day to the last in 
that dreadful contest, this pulpit pronounced, with no 
uncertain sound, — and oftener than was agreeable, 
perhaps, to all the membership of the society, — not 
only for the national cause, but for the national 
cause as it meant, or should be made to mean, 
liberty and justice to the negro, — equality of rights 
to all the inhabitants of the land. And there is no 
part of my ministry to which I look back to-day with 
more satisfaction than to this. It is a special cause 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 38 1 

of joy to me now to recall that I never from the first 
had the slightest question as to what were the prin- 
ciples which the pulpit should keep paramount in 
discussing the issues of the great conflict ; that, in 
the very first discourse I gave upon the matter, 
several months before the war actually broke out, 
I struck the key-note, which I never afterwards lost, 
that, as slavery was the cause of the nation's troubles 
and perils, so emancipation must be their remedy ; 
and that, again, when Fort Sumter was attacked, and 
President Lincoln called upon the loyal States for 
troops, and the northern section of the country was 
in that Pentecostal flood of enthusiasm for defending 
the dishonored flag, when many warmly patriotic 
souls thought it injudicious to risk disturbing the 
sentiment of loyalty to the Union by introducing the 
issue of slavery, — that even then I could not hesi- 
tate to declare that the one thing which imperilled 
the Union was slavery, and the one thing which 
could permanently save the Union, and the only 
thing which could give to our armies a cause worth 
dying for, was liberty with justice. 

I do not recall these things in any spirit of boast- 
ing. Far from it. I was by no means alone in such 
pulpit work ; nor did I have much to do, at the time, 
in determining my course by reasoning it out and 
nerving my will to it. All that had been previ- 
ously done for me in my education and moral tem- 
perament. Rather do I recall this part of my 
ministry in devout gratitude that the mighty moral 
forces which were then surging through this nation 
to lift it to a higher plane of righteousness found 



382 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 

and used me as their instrument. I recall it, too, 
that I may give due thanks to you of this society for 
the untrammelled freedom you gave me for such 
utterances. This work was not mine alone. We 
did it together. You gave me the freedom, and I 
used it. On no other terms than those of free 
expression, as my deepest convictions compelled, 
could I have remained your minister. But, though 
my discourses on these themes may not always have 
been in accord with the judgments of all who were 
in the pews, never did I receive from you a hint or 
sign that you wished this pulpit to be other than 
free. Whatever it may have been able to do for our 
country's cause during this eventful period, you 
shared the work. 

I may here add that the freedom which I then 
used in speaking in this place on matters of vital 
political concern, I have continued to use whenever 
it seemed to me that, in pending political issues, 
questions of deep moral import were involved. The 
ordinary questions on which political parties are sep- 
arated have their appropriate discussion elsewhere, 
and do not properly belong to the pulpit ; though 
the minister as a citizen should have his views on 
such questions, and should be expected, like all good 
citizens, freely to act upon them in his personal ca- 
pacity. But, whenever political issues or party action 
distinctly involve ethical questions and come into the 
domain of practical morals, then the pulpit has a 
legitimate right to express itself on such issues and 
action, and will be very derelict to its duty, if it fail 
to do this. It is a very delicate and difficult duty 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 383 

with which the preacher is thus charged, calling for 
the faculty of strict mental justice and for entire 
freedom from the spirit of partisanship. He should 
be able to speak in such a way that his hearers, if 
they can listen with the like candor, will feel that it 
is the moral, and not the political message that is 
dominant in his mind. It is in this way and spirit 
that I have always endeavored to approach and treat 
such questions here, — with what success it is not for 
me to say. 

But, I think, I may safely say that the freedom of 
this pulpit for a wide range of topics has been 
established beyond recall. As wide as are the 
applications, to national, social, or individual con- 
duct of the fundamental principles of justice, hon- 
esty, purity, humanity, brotherhood, so wide at least 
must be the freedom of any pulpit which has any 
good reason for existence in this last quarter of the 
nineteenth century. On this ground, I have been 
wont to consider that not only political questions 
which involve moral principle, but all questions of 
social and moral reform, are fitting themes to be 
treated in this place. Temperance, justice and 
equal opportunity to woman, the treatment of crime 
and criminals, the national duty to the Indians, 
social purity, marriage and divorce, the seculariza- 
tion of government and of the public schools in this 
country as a matter of equal rights for all classes of 
citizens, the better reconciliation of the interests 
of labor and capital, — these and any other themes 
pertaining to the social amelioration and elevation 
of mankind, I have been accustomed from time to 



3*4 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



time to bring to this pulpit, that we might view and 
weigh them here from the stand-point of religion. 
The religion, indeed, which I have tried through all 
these years to present to you in my preaching 
covers all these great themes and objects which are 
so vital to human happiness and progress. 

Yet there is a popular distinction between relig- 
ious themes and themes pertaining to social reform 
and philanthropy ; and, at this point, I turn to survey 
those beliefs underlying my ministry, which by this 
popular usage would be called religious beliefs. And 
here it is that the gradual development of thought, 
involving some changes of opinion, of which I just 
now spoke, is to be noted. When I first came among 
you, I could have said that my views accorded more 
nearly, perhaps, with the system of belief which had 
been preached by Theodore Parker than with the 
views of any other representative man. That is, I 
discarded the supernatural, the prodigious, the mirac- 
ulous, as evidence of religious truth or attestation of 
a special revelation from Deity, and accepted religion 
as only a natural revelation of moral and spiritual 
truths. Between the so-called revealed religions and 
natural religion there was, to my mind, no distinction. 
All religions were natural, — that is, were the natural 
unfoldment and ascension of the human mind in the 
discovery of ethical and spiritual truth ; and yet all 
religions so far as they possessed any truth were 
revealed, — that is, truth, wherever found and in 
whatever religion, was from Deity, being a part of 
his very nature. Jesus was an exceptionally great 
religious teacher and prophet, but a natural, finite, 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 385 

and therefore fallible human being. It was only his 
clear and extraordinary insight into truth that gave 
him authority, and not any special credentials, at- 
tested by miracle-working, which were given him 
from heaven. Christianity, historically, was a devel- 
opment and accretion of many beliefs and forces, 
some true, some false ; and it could only be called 
the absolute religion when reduced to the simple 
principles taught by Jesus, — love to God and man. 
Christianity might, however, be properly thus de- 
fined, and thus be accepted still by the rational mind 
as synonymous with absolute religion. And the 
three primary ideas of absolute religion — God, Duty, 
Immortality — were to be regarded as given by direct 
natural revelation in the human consciousness, and 
hence needed, and could have, no stronger attesta- 
tion of their truth through any kind of outward 
evidence addressed to the senses. This is a brief, 
imperfect schedule of the leading features of Theo- 
dore Parker's theological beliefs. 

And this, in substance, would pretty well describe 
the chief points of my theological views when my 
ministry began, except that I questioned whether 
the doctrine of immortality could be philosophically 
said to rest immediately on the testimony of human 
consciousness ; whether it was not rather a logical 
inference from certain facts of consciousness ; and 
except also that I was not so pronouncedly theistic 
in my conception of Deity. The very first sermon 
I ever wrote, and one of the earliest I gave in this 
pulpit, was criticised by our professor in the Theo- 
logical School as too strongly infused with Panthe- 



386 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



ism. I had then, as I have always had since, a logi- 
cal difficulty in separating Deity from the living law 
and energies of the universe itself, as an individual, 
self-existing being, who might be conceived as exist- 
ing alone, in his own solitude, though there were no 
universe at all ; for, to my mind, the universe itself 
was infinite in its range and life and possibilities of 
power, and, hence, to conceive of God as a separate 
infinite entity apart from it required the logical 
impossibility of believing in two infinite beings. 
Therefore, my thought tended to identify Deity with 
the inmost powers, life, and development of the 
whole possible universe; as, in some sense, the soul, 
of which the universe was the body, though this 
comparison, drawn from our knowledge of finite 
organisms, could only very inadequately and imper- 
fectly express the actual relation between Deity and 
the natural universe. In his essence, Deity must, 
indeed, remain uncomprehended by the finite mind, 
though his existence and power must be necessarily 
assumed. With these exceptions, my thought at 
that time followed pretty nearly in the line of Mr. 
Parker's religious views, as they may be read in his 
books to-day. In brief, my religious philosophy was 
that of the New England Transcendentalists. I 
believed that man had by nature an intuitive faculty 
by which the great religious and moral truths were 
self-evident to him. These truths were a transcript 
in the human mind of the attributes of the divine 
mind, or they were the divine nature as mirrored in 
the individual human soul. And to this philosophy 
I was predisposed by the Quaker doctrine of the 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 387 



Inner Light, to which I had been bred from child- 
hood, and which I may even say I possessed by 
heredity as well as by early training. 

And, now, as to the source and nature of the 
change which has come in these beliefs. In the 
year 1859, Darwin's Origin of Species was published, 
— that epoch-making book, as the Germans say. 
This book I read in the first year of my ministry. 
With the evolution theory of creation I was already 
acquainted, and in a general way accepted it as 
much more rational and credible than the popular 
belief in special creative acts. Several years before, 
I had read that little book, Vestiges of Creation, 
whose authorship was not discovered until last year, 
when William Chambers, the veteran Edinburgh 
author and publisher, died. Then a friend, with 
whom the secret had been deposited, revealed to the 
world that William Chambers wrote Vestiges of Cre- 
ation. That publication for its time, though now 
displaced by later works on the same theme written 
from the vantage-ground of wider scientific investi- 
gation, was also for many minds an epoch-making- 
book. It was so to me. From that time, though I 
saw that there was not a little of hypothesis in the 
development theory, as it was styled in that work, 
I was an evolutionist, in the sense that this seemed 
to me much the more probable way in which the 
various organisms and species of life had come into 
existence ; while my mind was by no means shut 
against further evidence, nor was then conscious of 
all the logical implications of the evolution doctrine. 
The book opened to mo, however, a new earth and 



388 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



new heavens, and planted in my thought the seeds 
of a grander and more fruitful conception of Deity 
than any which I had found in the old theologies. 
Darwin's famous book brought the further evidence, 
gathered so carefully and from such wide fields of 
research and long-continued study. And it was all 
confirmatory of the development theory advanced in 
the older book. Other contributions, from various 
authors, rapidly followed on the same theme in its 
different branches. 

Soon, it became evident that here were truths of 
science, which would profoundly affect the intui- 
tional system of philosophy as it had been applied to 
religion. Here was science, not only going behind 
instinct in the animal to explain it, defining it as 
" inherited habit," — the habit of doing certain things 
having been formed through a long series of experi- 
ments in natural selection to find the conditions 
most favorable to life, — but here was science also 
going behind the social affections, sympathies, char- 
ities, and even conscience in the human soul, and 
confidently offering similar explanation of them. 
And, if this explanation were true, what would 
become of that idea of the intuitive philosophy that 
these human benevolent affections and the moral 
sense, or conscience, are a direct impression made 
by the divine mind upon the individual human 
mind ? or of the more mystical idea that, when these 
attributes exist in specially large measure in any 
human soul, it is because such soul is specially 
open and receptive to a direct incoming of divine 
power, as from a personal source of inspiration 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 389 

and enlightenment apart from its own organism ? 
Through the pressure of questions like these, I was 
led to review the positions of the intuitional philoso- 
phy, especially in its application to religious truths, 
with the result of considerable modification in my 
views. I saw especially that the old idea, a favorite 
of the intuitional school of thought, — that the divine 
mind, as a present personal entity, impresses the in- 
dividual human mind with certain qualities of affec- 
tion, or inspires it with certain thoughts, or endows it 
outright at birth with certain mental gifts, — was no 
longer tenable. I saw that this idea of a commerce 
of finite minds with the infinite mind through the air, 
as it were, without the medium of any organism, was 
really a relic of superstitious faith ; and that, under 
the figurative language of God's attributes being mir- 
rored in the human soul, or being impressed upon it 
from some entirely external source, as if God and 
man stood over against each other as two distinct 
personalities, was concealed the delusion of a false 
philosophy. 

But I was not long in reaching a new position, 
nor was there any serious conflict in my mind be- 
tween the new and old. I said science must be the 
criterion for testing our beliefs, for science dis- 
covers the facts of the universe ; but science, ob- 
serve you, only in its actual discoveries, — not sci- 
ence, merely in the domain of the material world and 
its forces, but science as it embraces the whole 
realm of facts in the world of the human intellect 
and heart, and in all phases of human history. A 
belief or a sentiment is not necessarily to be dis- 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



carded because science fails to explain it. It will 
be time enough to discard it when rational knowledge 
has positively shown that it rests on error. The 
circulation of the blood went on by natural law in 
the human frame before Harvey discovered the true 
theory of it. So there may be in man's mental and 
moral organism the natural exercise of certain 
functions called spiritual or religious, which have 
hitherto performed their service for human life in 
connection with theories of them wholly erroneous. 
But it does not follow that the functions themselves 
are an illegitimate and artificial excrescence upon 
human life. They may be as necessary to the higher 
moral life of man as is the circulation of the blood to 
his physical life. If distinctly proved to be founded 
in and maintained by error, then, of course, they are 
to be abandoned. But, until then, they have a right 
to stay, with the presumption that they have a legiti- 
mate cause ; and the true explanation of them may 
yet be found. 

With regard to the relation between man and 
Deity, these scientific truths which are involved in 
the doctrine of evolution only compelled me to recur 
more definitely to that pantheistic conception of 
Deity which the Cambridge professor had criticised, 
and to adjust all related beliefs and the language for 
expressing them to that central thought of the 
identity and oneness of Deity with the living law 
and energies of the universe itself. Instead of man 
being connected with Deity as one finite person 
with another, the two communicating in some mys- 
terious way through the intervening spaces, man is 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 39 1 

connected with Deity through that natural organism 
of his own faculties, by which his life is woven in 
one piece with the life of the world-forces around 
him, and with the unfolding order of the forms of 
being and life anterior to him for countless ages. I 
have found no science which dispenses with the 
necessity of a causal and sustaining power whence 
all beings and things have come and continue ; nor 
have I found any science which does not acknowl- 
edge that man is in necessary vital relation with this 
power, whatever it may be. And this is the power 
which, in accordance with a strictly scientific phi- 
losophy, wells up in the human consciousness as 
thought and moral perception, as personal will and 
humane sympathies. Here, therefore, I find ample 
ground, not only for a religious philosophy and for 
religious institutions, but also for all that was most 
valuable in the intuitional philosophy, — namely, its 
assertion of divine Power and Life as immanent 
in human life ; of the moral sense as the perception 
of an absolute distinction between right and wrong ; 
and of mind as the dominant element in the evolu- 
tion of the world-forces, — or of mind, instead of 
matter, as riding in the saddle of the powers that 
have evolved this world of nature and man which 
comes under our knowledge. Why should we imag- 
ine the divine Power to be brought any nearer to us 
or to be any more real to our thought, if we con- 
ceive it as in some way external to us and inspiring 
and impressing us by an afflatus from the skies, than 
if we conceive it as welling up within us as the 
vitalizing force of our mental and moral perceptions 



39 2 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



and the very power that constrains us within to fol- 
low the true and to do the humane and the right ? 
By this latter view, we are set, indeed, in the very 
current of the divine energy. It is that which has 
created our mental, moral, and affectional organism, 
and still supplies vitality to all their functions. 
The mighty Power sweeps in and through us, itself 
the light by which we see, itself the law of right- 
eousness which commands our service, itself the 
force of the truth and beauty which impels the ado- 
ration of our intellects and lifts our lives to noble 
aspiration and purpose : only, in the exquisite struct- 
ure of this organism by which we live, we are, in a 
measure, free to ignore and resist this vital influx 
and upsurging of the Eternal Energy in which our 
being consists ; or, on the other hand, we may keep 
the natural channels of our faculties open to its 
ceaseless, benignant flow, and even increase their 
capacity, and thus work in and by its power to fulfil 
its purposive movement in the great world-process. 

Further study, also, of Christianity in its origin 
and history, and by comparison with other religions, 
convinced me that it had no special claim to be 
considered as synonymous with absolute religion. 
I saw that just those things in it which are perma- 
nent and make it acceptable to the rational mind to- 
day are the mental and moral perceptions which it 
holds in common with all the great religions of the 
world ; while those beliefs, and particularly that of 
the Messianic authority of Jesus, which especially 
mark it as a distinct religion, are the beliefs which 
the rational mind to-day questions and which are 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 393 

transient and perishable. The conclusion was forced 
upon me that it is presumption and arrogance to 
claim as " Christian " those ideas and those virtues 
and graces of character which may be equally found 
among enlightened believers in other religions than 
the Christian ; and I came to the conviction that the 
progress of humanity would now be greatly aided, 
if the barriers between the religions, which are kept 
up by their special claims and names, could be re- 
moved, and people from various faiths should be 
drawn into one fellowship on the basis of absolute 
liberty of thought, of pure aspirations, and of ear- 
nest endeavor to know and to keep the law of right- 
eousness, recognizing no other authority than that 
of truth itself. I believed that the time had come 
for distinctly inculcating these ideas ; and I have, 
therefore, during the larger part of my ministry 
given myself to this work, here and elsewhere, in 
connection with what has become known as the 
Free Religious movement. I have hoped that these 
ideas would gradually permeate the minds of people, 
in the churches and outside of churches, and in time 
organize religion on natural and rational grounds 
and in new and more effective forms for the benefit 
of humanity. 

And, now, let me briefly draw into serial form the 
leading articles into which these fundamental princi- 
ples of my religious faith naturally branch, stating 
them succinctly without argument, the argument 
having been given from time to time for these many 
years. The statement may be called my creed: 
mine, though not necessarily yours. 



394 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



1. I believe in God as the power eternal, immortal, 
invisible, omnipresent, within and behind all phe- 
nomena, unknown and yet known, working in and 
through nature, producer and sustainer of all forms 
of existence, vitalizer of all organisms and life, well- 
ing up as mental and moral energy in the conscious- 
ness of man, and striving in the development of 
human history to establish righteousness as the law 
of life for the individual and for the race, and as the 
surest, amplest providence for human guidance. 

2. I believe in man as the highest consummation 
and expression of the eternal energy in that part of 
the universe which comes within our knowledge. 
Beginning on the level of animal existence, spring- 
ing from the lower forms of life that were anterior 
to him, I believe that in him the eternal energy has 
fashioned such an organism that he has been able to 
rise from the plane of animal life, through the vari- 
ous grades of savagery and barbarism, until he has 
reached the heights of civilization, enlightenment, 
and power, which he holds to-day. I believe that 
he has made this progress, and has capacity for in- 
definite progress in the future, through his natural 
faculties of reason, conscience, and affection, which 
are a manifestation in him, under finite limitations, 
of the eternal energy itself, and which may be so 
vitalized as to make man a secondary creator in 
co-operating with and carrying forward the eternal 
world-purpose. 

3. I believe that the moral law, or conscience, is 
man's intuitive perception of the equation of rights 
between human beings in their relations to each 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 



395 



other. I believe that a certain stage of intelligence 
through the disciplines of experience had to be 
reached by primitive man before this perception be- 
came possible, just as a certain degree of intelli- 
gence was necessary for perceiving the relation of 
numbers in the multiplication-table ; but that, when 
this degree of intelligence was reached, the percep- 
tion of the equation of rights between man and man 
would follow as necessarily as the perception of 
the relation of numbers. I believe, therefore, that 
morality rests on as permanent and irrefragable a 
basis as does the science of mathematics. 

4. I believe that religion is the expression of 
man's relation to the universe and its vital powers, 
or to its living, sustaining energy. From connection 
with and dependence upon this energy, it is not 
possible for man to escape. The fact of this relation 
is established by science ; and science, in its broad 
sense, must be depended upon to give the true 
theory of it. But, in all ages, man has been con- 
scious of it ; and his expression of the relation has 
threefold form, — through thought, through feeling, 
and through action. Through one or another or all 
of these forms of expression, he has sought to per- 
fect his relation to the universal forces and laws. 
I believe that from this fundamental idea have 
grown all the special religions, while their dis- 
tinguishing beliefs and ceremonies have been shaped 
by the intelligence of the people holding them. I 
believe, therefore, that all the religions have a natu- 
ral origin and a natural development ; that, by virtue 
of their common root, they are sects of one universal 



396 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



religion ; and that, notwithstanding their differences 
and antagonisms, resulting from their special doc- 
trines and claims, there are among them certain 
underlying unities of belief, aspiration, and moral 
sentiment, by which they are bound together in one 
fellowship. 

5. I believe that the sacred books of the various 
religions have the same natural source, — the human 
mind, in its effort to express its relation to the infi- 
nite Power. They are the religious literature of the 
race or people producing them. Various in merit, 
they all contain important truths ; and the truths in 
all of them are mingled with errors. As a transcript 
of what humanity has thought and felt, as it has 
struggled with the great problems of life, they are 
invaluable. But they are to be read to-day, not as 
infallible authority for truth, but with that discrim- 
ination which can separate truth from error, and 
find refreshing for the heart and moral stimulus for 
conduct instead of a creed to bind upon the in- 
tellect. 

6. I believe that the founders and prophets of the 
religions were human beings, of superior intellectual 
endowments or moral insight ; holy men and seers, 
who became the natural leaders of the people about 
them, and around whose lives, through the pious 
imagination of their followers, there afterwards 
gathered legends and myths, to express the people's 
wonder and admiration for their greatness and 
power. I believe that the lustre of the moral exam- 
ple of Jesus is not dimmed nor the power of his 
character for moral inspiration impaired by thus 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 



397 



placing him in the natural line of humanity, and in 
a group of kindred souls, who have lived, wrought, 
and died, and borne brave testimony to truth and 
right, for the guidance and healing of the nations. 

7. I believe that reward and retribution for deeds 
done in the body are assured by the natural law that 
binds effect to cause ; that moral error, or wicked- 
ness, produces as its inevitable consequence pain 
and wretchedness ; that, if continued, it is suicidal 
in its agency, and tends to the ultimate destruction 
of its own power ; that moral good, on the contrary, 
is self-perpetuating, and leads ever more and more 
to larger and higher life, to realms of purer happi- 
ness, and to ever greatening capacity for virtue and 
for virtue's service. 

8. I believe that, on the ground of the strongest 
and most rational probability, though it be beyond 
the realm of knowledge, man may entertain a con- 
fident hope — nay, a faith — in his own personal im- 
mortality ; that the eternal energy, having achieved 
self-consciousness in the wonderful personality of 
human character, with its power of progressing upon 
its own nature, will not lightly throw away such a 
being and such an advantage after a few years of 
earthly life. I believe, however, that, while man 
may' entertain this hope and hold this faith, his first 
of duties is not to dream of the life hereafter, but to 
work zealously for the amelioration of human society 
on earth ; to show himself less anxious about saving 
his own soul for eternal bliss than concerning the 
salvation of other souls around him from present 
ignorance, wrong, and wretchedness, so that they 



398 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



may become capable of intellectual, moral, and spir- 
itual life. 

9. I believe that, as God, the eternal living energy, 
Is ever seeking and striving to embody his power 
more and more in man, soliciting him, by inward 
constraining impulse, to truth, goodness, and moral 
beauty, so also may man correspondingly seek and 
find God ; for 

" God is seen God 
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul, and the clod. 
And, thus looking within and around me, I ever renew 
(With that stoop of the soul which, in bending, upraises it too) 
The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all-complete, 
As, by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet." 

10. I believe, finally, that 'these lines of Browning 
aptly express religion's threefold form of manifesta- 
tion, through thought, emotion, and conduct. They 
hint a philosophy of Deity and man, and of the rela- 
tion between them, and they picture the emotional 
attitude of the human mind in all genuine worship 
and prayer ; as also the brave endeavor and deed 
that are necessary to bring human life and divine law 
into practical harmony. 

Thus, friends, have I given you my creed, not, of 
course, to impose it upon you, but as the substance 
of the religious philosophy which underlies my 
ministry. One doctrine implied in my creed is that 
every person is responsible for his own, — that free- 
dom of thought is both a right and a duty which all 
human beings should hold sacred. 



A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 399 

But higher than any creed is the deed. Better 
than any other kind of faith is the faith that takes 
shape in pure and upright character. This has 
been my constant theme through all the years of my 
ministry. It has sometimes seemed to me that, 
whatever the topic I treat, my sermons always come, 
in the practical application at the end, to this one 
goal, — character, true and beneficent character, — this 
above all things, this forever and evermore. But is 
not this the proper goal, — the end of all endeavor, 
of all aspiration, of all living ? What but this makes 
life worth living? What is nobler, what fairer, what 
more beautiful and entrancing than the life of a 
noble soul ? O friends, if my ministrations have 
led any of you in these years to see this truth more 
clearly, to feel it more deeply, and if my services 
have thus in any way inspired you to purer, truer 
living, I ask for no higher satisfaction. That, and 
that only, is the measure of my success. My first 
sermon to you as your minister, New Year's day, 
i860, closed with these words: "If I can lift any 
souls among you to more ennobling truth, to purer 
love, to stronger virtue, if I can quicken your 
spiritual vision, and lead any of you to see more 
clearly the infinite beauty of a life proportioned to 
the- laws of eternal rectitude, then will these New 
Year's vows of consecration be crowned indeed with 
blessing, being followed in due season by seed-time 
showers and hopes, maturing summer suns, and 
autumn harvests of ripened souls." Dear friends, 
if my ministry has been in any measure instru- 
mental in doing for any of you such a service as I 



400 



TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 



here pictured in my hope, or if I was permitted to 
do it for arry of that congregation of our risen dead, 
our "cloud of witnesses," who have joined 

" the choir invisible, 
Whose music is the gladness of the world," 

then indeed will the young man's vow of consecra- 
tion, twenty-five years ago, have been lifted, to 
become to-day my manhood's crown of rejoicing. 

December 28, 1884. 



APPENDIX. 



LETTER TO MR. POTTER. 

Dear Mr. Potter, — Many friends desire the publication of 
a selection of your sermons, and they ask that the volume may 
contain such as you may choose from those you have given 
from our pulpit during the quarter of a century you have been 
settled over the First Congregational Society of New Bedford. 

They also ask that an engraved portrait of yourself with 
your autograph be bound in the volume, and that the account 
of the Reception on your twenty-fifth anniversary, including 
the addresses, as published in the papers of the day, be 
annexed. Your friends wish to make this volume a part of 
that celebration, and a permanent me7norial of the value to 
them of your twenty-five years' service and of the gratitude 
they feel toward you as pastor and preacher. 

Will you kindly attend to the compiling of this volume, in 
such, form as you may deem best, and thus gratify this general 
desire ? 

In behalf of these many friends, 

Cordially and faithfully yours, 

S. Griffitts Morgan. 

New Bedford, 1885. 



402 



APPENDIX 



In accordance with the suggestion in the foregoing let- 
ter (to which this book is the answer), the matter con- 
tained in this Appendix is added. 



A Parish Reception was given to Mr. Potter on the 
evening of Dec. 29, 1884, in celebration of his having 
completed on the previous day twenty-five years of service 
as minister of the First Congregational Society. 

At the opening of the Reception, the following hymn, 
written for the occasion by Mr. William G. Baker, of New 
York, a former member of the Society, was sung by the 
Sunday-school, accompanied by the presentation to the 
pastor of a basket of roses : — 

A sower went forth sowing 
In Eastern fields one day, 
And cast in lavish handfuls 
The seed along his way. 
But, ah ! the sun was burning, 
The weeds and thorns grew fast : 
Twas only in the " good ground " 
The seeds sprang up at last. 

Like seeds cast by the sower 

Through ev'ry passing year, 

Our teacher's words have fallen, 

That still we love to hear. 

Our hearts shall be the "good ground " 

Wherein the seeds shall spring, 

To blossom with the beauty 

Of these fresh flowers we bring. 



APPENDIX 403 

After social greetings by the Society and guests, a colla- 
tion, and singing by the choir of the Society, assisted by a 
chorus, the assembly was called to order by T. M. Stetson, 
Esq., who spoke as follows : — 

ADDRESS OF THOMAS M. STETSON, ESQ. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, and Children and Grandchildren, — 

Do you know that in this Society there is a dread and 
awful power ? It wears the garb and aspect of a gracious 
lady, but its decrees are more imperious and absolute 
than those of the council of Venice. It has decided that 
in this our festival — and nobody can organize a sym- 
posium better than Unitarian ladies — there shall be 
speeches instead of the walnuts and the wine. I told 
her it might have a disastrous and centrifugal effect upon 
the liables (for I cannot style them reliables) of the 
parish: that next time my Brother Crapo would have 
" Alabama claims " in Washington requiring immediate 
attention ; that Judge Prescott would drop his cane and 
fly off to Westford ; that Mr. Rotch, Mr. Clifford, the new 
mayor, and myself would vanish where no feminine com- 
mittee could find us. But it was of no use ; and I am 
ordered by our high priestess to bring Mr. Potter up 
here, because she says he needs to be spoken to, — that 
this is no ordinary occasion, — and she says it will be 
only seventy-five years more for the completion of his 
centennial service with us, and he wants to know what 
reply we have to make for his twenty-five years of preach- 



404 



APPENDIX 



ing. This may be so. I once read a sermon of the 
greatest writer that ever lived. The clergy present will 
at once know that I mean the Rev. Mr. Tarbell, of Lin- 
coln, who left six thousand sermons, each equal to four- 
teen printed pages of the North American Review. He 
said that, after writing some four or five thousand of 
these, the saddest doubts came to him whether he had 
not survived his usefulness, and whether the earnest- 
ness and bloom and fire of his youth had not departed 
and left no substitute. Perhaps our pastor has his 
periods of doubt and depression ; and I presume he 
would like to know what record his ministry has made, 
not merely upon sermons docketed and filed in his desk, 
but in his parishioners' minds and hearts. 
Let us tell him to-night. 

How events have marched since you, sir, became our 
minister ! How you have been interwoven with the 
dearest associations of this people ! How many marriage 
ties you have consecrated ! Over how many strong men 
— men of business, of affairs, men of the world, men of 
the State and of the public — have you spoken the last 
benediction of faith and hope ! How many gentle women, 
too, have passed away, whose lives had filled their homes 
with joy; not of the world, knowing its ills and woes 
only through their sweet charities, living afar from its 
tides and tempests, and seeing in their stormy waves only 
the deep blue of heaven, and yet, oh, how useful in God's 
scheme for human welfare and felicity ! 

What tides of action and of thought, of peace and war, 



APPENDIX 



405 



have swept by since you, a youthful acolyte, stood at our 
temple's gate, with your priestly brethren, and the solemn 
invocation went up, — 

" Since thy servant now hath given 
Himself, his powers, his hopes, his youth 
To the great cause of truth and heaven, 
Be thou his guide, O God of truth ! " 

Our right hand of fellowship was given you then. It 
need not be given again, for it has never been with- 
drawn ; but, to-night, we are celebrating your silver wed- 
ding to this church. 

What a congregation it was when you undertook the 
cure of souls, and especially what predecessors you had 
to follow! — the sturdy old logicians and expounders, 
Samuel Hunt and Dr. West ; the masculine orators of 
the liberal faith, Dewey, Peabody, and others ; Weiss, a 
very Chrysostom of the modern pulpit. What a mantle 
fell upon you ! Nor was it an ordinary society, nor of 
that weak mental pliancy which can be easily moulded 
by any able divine. It contained people of strong and 
diverse thoughts and methods and views. What a history 
it had, too ! The Mercury, usually so accurate, erred this 
morning in attributing our birthday to the year 1795. 
Why, our first minister died over sixty years before that. 
Nor were we an offshoot of the meeting at Acushnet. 
We were the whole of it : we were the " Bedford pre- 
cinct " for nearly a hundred years before that date, and 
for thirty years after, too, till our name was changed 



406 



APPENDIX 



by law to "The First Congregational Society in New 
Bedford." Nothing happened in 1795 excepting the 
building of a new edifice. Ours is the oldest legal church 
organization in this part of the colony, and was estab- 
lished to be a bulwark of the Protestant faith here, and 
with legal powers and safeguards that would startle you 
to hear. It had legal control over all religious affairs 
here, and over all men, religious and irreligious ones, too. 
Its powers were enormous. Its taxes were laid on every 
man who lived in the precinct territory, — on his poll, 
his lands and estate, — and this was collected by force of 
law. Every stranger who came here was taxed in the 
same way, irrespective of his faith, unless he could get a 
certificate from the clerk that he belonged to some other 
church approved by the government. Just one hundred 
years ago this winter, a poor Baptist, who had but one 
cow, and that necessary for the support of his family, in 
an inclement winter, was jailed for nine solid months 
because he would not give up that cow to pay a minis- 
terial tax to our society. Those were the days when 
parish funds collected easily. The sheriff and the law 
did it, and it did not need the zeal and assiduity of any 
John R. Thornton of that century to keep the parish 
treasury full. 

And if the town or precinct, as the case might be, was 
negligent, and did not provide a minister, in such case of 
a " defective " town (mark that phrase : a town was 
"defective," if a minister was lacking), then the county 
court stepped in, selected a minister, and saw to his 



APPENDIX 407 

installation and settlement. Fancy such an ordination as 
that, Mr. Potter ! Instead of an induction into our pulpit 
by the grave and reverend seniors who did it, fancy it 
done by the county sheriff and his mace I 

And it was not safe in those elder days for any discon- 
tented subject to grumble and scold improperly about the 
quality of the preaching. For the first offence, he was 
"convented," — whatever that maybe I don't know, but 
it sounds like something that might hurt. For the second 
offence, he had to stand on a block four feet high. Doubt- 
less, our sweet ancestors of Plymouth colony deemed a 
block four feet high conducive to devotional thoughts. 

No rival church was tolerated here in our early period. 
If any man set up such without the consent of the gov- 
ernment, he lost his vote in town meeting and had to 
receive such other punishment as the court should inflict ; 
and it was made the duty of the county court to purge 
out such as were " perniciously heterodox." 

The future of the church was also provided for by law. 
It was the legal duty of the selectmen of the town to see 
that children and servants were made to understand the 
grounds of Christianity, so far as " necessary to salva- 
tion." This was a grave task for a selectman of old 
Dartmouth on his dollar a day. 

The church was militant then. It had to be. The 
laws provided that every man should take his gun to 
meeting with him and . at least three bullets. The same 
chapter also provided, however, that he should not shoot 
at any game except an Indian or a wolf. 



408 



APPENDIX 



These were halcyon days for the clergy. They had no 
rivals to fear and no grumblers, no loss of parishioners 
and no bother about salary. Before you came, Mr. Pot- 
ter, these, our lofty prerogatives, had one after the other 
vanished, and the voluntary system prevailed. That had 
some advantages, though I remember the experience of 
Rev. Dr. Barnes when it began. He heard that his flock 
were assembled in parish meeting, and were talking of 
increasing his salary from $300 to $400. He seized his 
hat, hurried to the meeting and begged they wouldn't ; 
for he said it was as much as he could do to collect $300 
out of them. 

You came to us when these tremendous safeguards of 
the law had ended. Your relation to us and ours to you 
had to stand upon its merit alone. You came to a con- 
gregation of various views, habits, and culture. The 
elder ones were strongly attracted to the ancient faith 
and the ancient ways ; watchful and rather suspicious 
of all novelties, but not hostile to honest inquiry into the 
records of revelation, nor into the infinite and unrecorded 
revelations of the earth, the universe, and of man's own 
consciousness. There were others who had passed into 
more liberality of faith — possibly some might deem, had 
travelled too fast or too far. Observances differed too. 
Some, after a week of figures and finance on wharf or at 
counting-house, when the Sunday came hungered and 
thirsted after righteousness spoken ; and yet others, 
raised on three services a day, a Sunday-school, mid-week 
meeting, the " great and Thursday lecture," the perfunc- 



APPENDIX 409 

tory morning and evening prayers at college, where 
prayers answer the purpose of the military reveille and 
tattoo, found when the Sunday came that physically and 
mentally they needed loneliness, and the silences of the 
forest and shore, and in the very stones found sermons. 

Yet, whatever our differences of ways, of observances, 
of creed too, your ministration has united us in a deep 
satisfaction when Sunday comes that you are at the helm 
and that our beautiful church is always open for its 
appointed work. 

All Unitarians have one thing in common. We do like 
and must have good preaching. We always have had it, — 
have it now and always will have it, — whether we hear it 
from you, or from Dr. Dexter, who has occupied our pul- 
pit, or from Mr. Julien and other gentlemen who will have 
an attentive and appreciative audience when they do 
come. 

Possibly some outsiders, knowing as little as outsiders 
ever do of an inside, have deemed you a crank, because, 
forsooth, you would not turn any accepted crank, and 
would not deem that all the truths of the infinite now and 
hereafter were known to the writers who have preceded 
us. You have promoted inquiry into all domains of re- 
ligious thought. You have aided thoughtful people in 
their gropings, questionings, doubts, and darkness, with 
an inquiry free but always reverential toward the faiths 
of the past, always deeply reverential toward the hero of 
our faith, than whom even the most expanded culture 
and incisive thought of the present never has produced, 
depicted, or imagined a diviner man. 



APPENDIX 



Yours has been a twenty-five years of progress ; and we 
wish to say now — not in mere cordial phrase of personal 
regard, but weighing our words — that the zeal and ear- 
nestness of your early service could not equal in interest 
to us the zeal and earnestness and widening scope and 
more comprehensive insight of your present. Yours has 
been a life of industry, fidelity, and growth. A soldier of 
the Church, you have never slumbered on your arms, nor 
shrunk behind any red-cross shield, but have met the ad- 
vance with unprotected breast. You have not taught us 
that religion is a mere means for personal advantage, 
however exalted, nor a private solace or balm of however 
lofty a nature. You have never based your instructions 
upon the selfishness of the entoderm, but have advocated 
reforms of every kind, and with all the care and prudence 
such preaching requires ; and by that I do not mean with 
faint heart or half speech, — but the treatment of every 
reform of old abuses requires a care commensurate with 
the limitless importance of success. Reforms are not 
altogether lovely. The serpent sheds not his old skin 
without pain. Reformers, too, are not always and alto- 
gether lovely. They are spinous. They bristle and sting. 
We have never found the unloveliness of the typical re- 
former in you. Your many sermons, in all ways and 
means for human improvement, have pervaded, imbued, 
and permeated us like the gentle dew of heaven. Yes, 
— to use the phrase of your own journal, — you maybe 
our ectoderm to your heart's content, but you will never 
be an echinoderm. 



APPENDIX 



411 



How well it attests the value of your ministry here — 
in spite of the fact that our Society is by no means 
homogeneous, and includes various beliefs, methods of 
thought and culture — that there is now a sterling unity 
among us and universal assent to and devotion to every 
serious and honest inquiry into the mysteries of life and 
of Deity, and that we are one shepherd and one fold I 
Our temple has been no place for discord. Too many 
prayers of tender hope have shed a perfume through the 
place. 

And now, with a united society and united hearts and 
with all signs gracious as rainbows, we welcome you to 
the second quarter-century of your ministry. 

On closing, Mr. Stetson called upon Mr. Crapo for 
remarks. 

ADDRESS OF HON. WILLIAM W. CRAPO. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : — 

Twenty-five years is not a long period in the lifetime of 
our church parish. Its organization dates back to the 
early days of the settlement of the town. It was an 
influential factor in the religious and moral development 
of the community prior to the Revolution. It has a his- 
tory, not remarkable simply for its longevity, but for the 
conspicuous and creditable service it has performed, and 
for the marked and distinguished men who have pre- 
sided over it and who have ministered to the spiritual 
needs of its people. 



412 



APPENDIX 



We will not discuss the wisdom or necessity of church 
organization. For the development of truth, in the effec- 
tive accomplishment of moral growth and spiritual cult- 
ure, it is requisite that there be co-operation and cohesion, 
unity of purpose and unity of action. Some go farther, 
and say there should be discipline, even if forced by 
compulsory rules and arbitrary regulations. They say 
that, as the contentious and disagreeing partner in busi- 
ness affairs, that as the impracticable and mugwump in 
political action, are elements of weakness, so in like 
manner the dissenters and come-outers, who break the 
ranks of established church organization and are strag- 
glers along the edges, impair the solidity and force of the 
assault when made against ignorance and error. I do 
not undertake to weigh in the balance the merits of 
adherence against the merits of independence. Our 
fathers, here in this locality, were never very submissive 
to church rule. They were free thinkers at the outset. 
They believed in regulating their religious exercises and 
in selecting their religious teachers according to their 
own notion, even if it defied an act of the General Court. 
I confess I have always had an admiration for the early 
settlers of this town when they defiantly declared, in the 
face of persecution, that they would have for themselves 
" perfect liberty in all matters of religious concernment." 
Our pastor was born in this town of Dartmouth,* where 
the principle was boldly asserted and successfully main- 
tained. This principle of freest thought and the freest 

* New Bedford was once a part of the original township of Dartmouth. 



APPENDIX 413 

exercise of conscience was the inheritance confided to 
him, and with courage and fidelity he has endeavored to 
transmit it. Independence of thought and persistency 
in maintaining it were born with him. What more nat- 
ural or logical ? If you plant an acorn, you must not 
expect that there will grow from it a bending, shrinking, 
shivering weeping willow or an aesthetic sunflower. 

But I am preaching a sermon, which is a very improper 
thing to do upon an occasion of festivity and congratula- 
tion. Let me, however, add one suggestion. When it is 
asserted that our church has swung away from the moor- 
ings of the true faith, when the indictment is presented 
against us by the religious community that we have com- 
mitted or are committing heresy, and it is charged our 
pastor is not according to the orthodox pattern, we will 
answer back with the same identical words which our 
fathers sent from the Dartmouth town-meeting, in 1705, 
to the quarter sessions at Bristol : " We understand that 
our town is presented for want of a minister accord- 
ing to law. To which we answer that we have one 
qualified as the law directs, — an honest man, fearing 
God, conscientious, and a learned minister, able to 
dispense the word and gospel to us." 

Such a man, Mr. President, we have had as our min- 
ister during the past twenty-five years. 

The history of the First Congregational Society, which 
is our parish title, shows the remarkable concurrence 
and harmony which have existed between its pastors and 
congregation. In early times, Dr. Samuel West was its 



4H 



APPENDIX 



religious teacher, occupying its pulpit from 1761 to 1803, 
forty-two years. It is said of him that he was a man 
of great learning and equal piety, a lover of disputation, 
and vigorous in theological argument. I do not doubt 
that he preached political sermons ; for he was an active 
partisan, and rendered zealous service in promoting the 
independence of his country. 

Within the last sixty-one years, we have had four 
pastors.* There was Dr. Dewey, who instructed this 
people with great stores of knowledge, and with profound, 
vigorous, and original thought. He was a ripe scholar, a 
wise teacher, and sound religious guide. 

Then came Ephraim Peabody, the warm-hearted, lov- 
able, companionable man, who, with great good sense and 
a strong mind, made piety to grow in the household as 
well as in the church. 

After him, John Weiss was for many years our min- 
ister, a man of marvellous brilliancy, with a genius and 
inspiration which seemed heaven-born. Bright, piercing, 
far-sighted, he fascinated and captivated us, and lifted us 
heavenward. 

These are the men who, in the past, have strengthened 
the faith of this people, and have guided them to a higher, 
purer, and better life. 

* Only the longest and leading pastorates were here named. But the society has 
had other faithful ministers in this period. The now venerable John H. Morison, D.D., 
was a colleague with Mr. Peabody for several years, the two having been settled 
together at the beginning of the latter's ministry. Dr. Morison is the only one of 
Mr. Potter's predecessors now living. Between Mr. Dewey and Mr. Peabody, Rev. 
Joseph Angier was settled as pastor for about two years ; and Rev. Charles Lowe 
was settled as colleague with Mr. Weiss for one year. 



APPENDIX 415 

We have met to-night to greet our friend, who is their 
successor. We can speak freely of those who have 
finished their record. But I find it difficult to express — 
of, rather, I find it difficult to refrain from expressing — 
the feelings and sentiments of this grateful, loving, 
and admiring audience, when speaking of our pastor in 
his presence. I know his hatred of adulation, his con- 
tempt for honeyed words, his scorn for fine-spoken, 
fulsome praises. He who so loves the truth will resent 
the truth, if spoken of himself. I will not affront him 
to-night by telling you in his hearing of his virtues, of 
the work he has done for us, and of the blessed services 
he has rendered, of the debt we owe him, and of the love 
we bear him. 

Were he not here to-night, I could speak of his courage, 
— that intellectual and moral courage which dares to 
follow convictions wherever they may lead, that shrinks 
from no encounter with the truth, and that boldly accepts 
the result. I could speak of his integrity of thought, 
which permits no evasion nor sophistry nor subterfuge, 
but which, with inflexible honesty and with even justice, 
seeks to find the pathway to eternal right. For twenty- 
five years, with high character and upright life, he has 
labored with us and for us. He has pleaded for recti- 
tude, for loftiness of purpose, for exalted purity, and for 
righteousness. We will not undertake to measure his 
usefulness. 

Mr. Potter, we have asked you here to-night that we 
may thank you for your modest, patient, faithful work. 



416 



APPENDIX 



We greet you with warm hearts. With cordial good will 
and fellowship, we declare our gratitude, our esteem, our 
affection. We congratulate you, not simply because your 
pastoral charge of twenty-five years remains unbroken, 
but because of its duties well performed. This festival 
is the token of the tenderness of our sympathy and the 
loyalty of our friendship. We wish you much happiness 
and long-continued usefulness. 



Mr. Potter's remarks in response were entirely extem- 
poraneous, and only a meagre report of them was made. 
On being summoned to the platform, he said that he had 
some difficulty in keeping a consciousness of his own 
identity amid such novel circumstances and facing the 
addresses to which he had just listened. After seeing, 
indeed, the morning paper, with its purported biograph- 
ical sketch, sounding so much like an obituary notice, he 
had had a feeling all day as if he ought not to be around 
hearing such things ; and perhaps it was for this reason 
that the few thoughts which had previously come to his 
mind as proper for him to say on this occasion, should 
there be any call, had slipped irrecoverably away. He 
could, however, if he still knew his own heart, say that he 
felt, felt deeply — far more than he could express — a 
most grateful appreciation of all the kindness which had 
been shown in these utterances and in all the arrange- 
ments of the occasion, as in the many other more private 
ways by which his friends had been revealing their hearts 



APPENDIX 



417 



to him during the last few days. But he wished, too, 
that this might not be wholly an occasion for mutual 
congratulations over the past, but that out of it might 
come new consecration and new strength for the duties 
of the future ; and he concluded with an earnest appeal 
to the Society, which he meant also for himself, that all 
should stand ready to seize and use any new opportunities 
for labor in behalf of the good of the community which 
might come to them as a Society, so that the light of this 
church of their fathers should not only continue to shine, 
but should shine with increasing clearness and brightness, 
for the blessing of the living, the honor of the dead, and 
the good of generations yet to come. 



